I began to meticulously unfold the first of those letters, already so worn from countless re-readings that it threatened to come apart entirely.
Said task was interrupted by a voice from the doorway. “Your pardon, Mister S_____. I just wished to see if you require anything. Assistance in folding your bed down for the night, perhaps?”
You’ll have to forgive my decision to conceal my family name, hackneyed as you may find it. I do not much care, at this point, what people read or think of me; I’ve no standing or career remaining to damage. My brother, however, deserves to be remembered as the kind soul and mechanical genius he was, rather than—but I get ahead of myself.
The speaker at the doorway was that same porter, the Eastern European. He had not knocked, nor was this the first time he had appeared, unsolicited, to inquire whether I needed anything. A man doing his duty is one thing, but this had grown tiresome.
“If I need anything,” I told him—somewhat coldly, I admit, “I am perfectly capable of seeking you out.” Or one of your compatriots, more probably! I thought, but did not add.
He said nothing more, merely tipped his hat and departed, though he did have the grace to shut the door behind him.
Again I started to open that letter, but I found myself in no state of mind to face Harold’s deterioration. With a muttered curse that would have been dreadfully rude in anyone else’s presence, I rose to stretch my legs and perhaps have a spot of supper.
Once ensconced in the dining car, I lingered over my meal, a remarkable pheasant prepared in a thick red wine reduction that would not have been out of place in any Parisian restaurant. After that, of course, nothing would do but a small snifter of brandy, and after that, a nervous energy had me pacing the train for some few hours. We had departed Stuttgart before I finally returned to my room.
Someone else had gotten there first.
I’ve developed something of an eye for detail during my genealogical researches, but I believe I’ve made it pretty clear how fatigued and distracted I was at the time. So I will note without undue embarrassment that, once I had settled in and taken my seat, it took me a few moments to realize that my stacks of letters had been knocked slightly askew, my notes disturbed, my map improperly folded.
To say I was enraged would be severe understatement. I shot back to my feet, nearly upsetting my papers far worse than the mysterious intruder had done. I confess that my first suspicions all pointed to that steward who had been so overly—let us, for the sake of decorum, say solicitous. I would very probably have confronted the fellow, had my search for him not been interrupted nearly the instant it began.
“You are Herr S____, ja? Timothy S____?”
One hardly required any depth of expertise to identify that accent.
My new acquaintance stood in the doorway to my private room, which at this juncture felt rather less than private. He was tall, thin of features and of hair, wrapped in a long coat. His hat and shoes were meticulously cared for, despite being of a flagrantly inexpensive make.
One wondered how he could afford to set foot on the Orient Express.
“Perhaps you ought to identify yourself first,” I growled, “seeing as how you are the man currently invading my private space.”
A curt nod, and then he displayed a badge of a sort I’d seen before but could not immediately place.
“Ritzler,” he announced. “Detective Otto Ritzler, Bavarian Kriminalpolizei.”
I acknowledged then that I was indeed who he believed me to be.
“You should collect your belongings, mein herr. You will be disembarking in Munich.”
“You’re mistaken,” I replied. Honestly, I strongly suspected he intended to offer me no choice, but my pride—and my distaste for having my schedule disrupted—demanded a protest. “I’ve paid for passage through Istanbul.”
“Nein. Even were I personally inclined to allow it, many polizei of many nations watch for you. As neither Bulgaria nor Turkey are signatories of the International Criminal Police Commission, you would never be allowed to pass beyond Budapest. As it was I who found you, you’ll be disembarking within my country’s own borders. No, mein herr. Munich is as far as you go.”
The notion of fighting never even crossed my mind. I am not a violent man, and I certainly wasn’t about to engage in fisticuffs with an officer of the law. Instead I merely slumped back into the chair. Ritzler took the opportunity to step fully into the chamber, leaning against the wall opposite me and lighting a cheap cigarette.
“Would you at least be so kind as to tell me,” I asked him, “what this is about?”
He offered me a sneer that, in my experience, only Germans and Austrians can manage. “You pretend not to know this?”
“I do not pretend. I honestly don’t know.”
He studied me for a time, then—as I was beginning to feel less suspect than specimen—he spoke. Possibly he believed me, though I think it more likely he humored me, hoping to learn something.
He glanced at the door—I assume confirming that it remained shut. “You are aware of the threats your brother has made against the railroads?”
I’d known it was foolish to imagine he was here for any other reason, but still, I’d hoped that this wasn’t the cause of his intrusion.
I winced to confirm any suspicions of Harold, but as Ritzler had already sifted through my papers, he’d probably know if I lied. “Surely the railroads receive any number of threats from people: unsatisfied customers, partisans of hostile countries.”
He glared at me as though I were the worst sort of imbecile, and I cannot say I blamed him.
You must understand, Harold was a man heavily involved with the expansion of the railroads across the continent. His specialties included—but no. As I stated earlier, I would prefer not to offer any means of decisively identifying him. Suffice to say, if you have taken passage on a train in Western Europe since the turn of the century, the odds are high that you passed through or crossed over a route to which he contributed.
Ritzler knew all that, as he proved when he finally spoke again. “Your brother, unlike any random instigator or criminal, knows precisely how to carry out any threats he might make.
“Last year,” the detective continued, “his behavior turned eccentric, ja? Public outbursts. Visits to the boards and investors of multiple railroads, first to request, and then to demand that travel along certain lines be halted. Und from there, threats to interrupt the lines himself if no one else would stop their use. With this, too, you are familiar?”
Again, he already knew the answer. Harold’s letters and telegrams would have confirmed everything the police had already learned. They clearly showcased his deterioration, from the earliest missives, in which he eloquently if vaguely expressed his growing doubt as to the wisdom of so intricate a transportation network, to the last, written in fragments, declaring his intentions to protect us all from the “arrogant, blasphemous miscalculations” for which he held himself and his compatriots responsible.
It was during this apparent breakdown of his faculties that he had done his seemingly random traveling, crisscrossing the continent time and again before ceasing all contact. Utterly disappearing, for all intents, and prompting me to begin my search for him.
Ritzler leaned abruptly forward, perhaps trying to startle me. If so, he failed. “Such behavior would appear suspicious at any time, but now? In the months leading up to, and then including your brother’s odd behavior, the number of missing persons reported along the major lines has increased. Measurably, throughout multiple countries.”
I hadn’t heard that, and it worried me that I hadn’t. Was I so focused on my task that I was missing important details?
Ritzler was still talking. “Even if we leave aside the immediate damage your brother is capable of inflicting, consider today’s political climate. Sabotage at the wrong place, at the wrong time, could instigate open war. Do you wonder why we are so determined to locate him?”
“No. No,
of course not.”
“Then you cannot possibly wonder that it might attract official interest when the man’s younger brother suddenly behaves in a similarly alarming fashion—crossing borders and making stops along the railway at seemingly random intervals. What are you two involved in, Herr S_____? What do you plan?”
It was my turn, now, to lean forward, hoping to emphasize the point. “Detective, my movements appear random as my brother’s because I’m searching for him. I can make no more rhyme or reason of his trail than you. Besides, my background is in history and ethnology. Even if I wanted to sabotage a train, I’d barely know where to begin!”
“So you say.” The detective shifted against the wall, trying on a more comfortable posture, and stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. “Assuming this is true,” he continued, clearly assuming nothing of the sort, “then your detention by the Kriminalpolizei should prove brief. For now, though, you will be disembarking with me, so I suggest, again, that you gather your belongings. We would not wish you to leave evidence behind, ja?”
Aggravated but lacking in options, I complied, opening my trunk and then reaching for the papers he’d so clumsily manhandled. Ritzler’s eyes were on me; mine were on the documents I was scooping into my arms. So when the door to my room flew wide yet again, we were both equally startled.
“I’m afraid I must insist that this passenger be permitted to reach his ticketed destination.”
It was that same porter yet again. This time, however, while his expression remained as solicitous as ever, the squat revolver in his fist suggested that he might not be in as considerate a state of mind. He was also not alone. Half-concealed by shadows in the hall behind him stood a second man in identical uniform. He wasn’t armed, so far as I could see, but his presence held a suggestion of menace.
Ritzler tensed, and I saw his hand dart into his coat, but he clearly thought better of the notion—and wisely so, in the face of the porter’s pistol. He settled, instead, for a vicious scowl.
“I am an officer of the Bavarian Kriminalpolizei!” he snapped. “Do you understand what you interfere with?”
“If you will kindly join me in the next room,” the porter replied, “you can explain it to me in all the detail you wish. In the meantime, however, we must leave these gentlemen alone to talk.”
The German radiated frustration, but again, knew better than to argue with the revolver.
“Do not fret, Herr Detective.” It was the second porter who spoke now. “You’ll not be returning home empty handed.”
I failed to note Ritzler’s reaction to that curious pronouncement. I was too busy reeling, almost stunned, at the sound of that voice.
He was far thinner than I remembered, sunken, even sickly. Although his face was clean-shaven and his hair neatly trimmed, there was something haggard about him. It was in his stance, in his expression, even if no longer in his upkeep.
“My God, Harold!” I could barely choke the words out, giving him plenty of time to slip inside and shut the door. “How can… ? You…?”
I might have stammered on—however unlike me, though, the reaction was—had my brother not fiercely slammed both fists on the desk. The gesture shocked me back into silence.
“Why are you here?” he demanded, voice wavering as it struggled to break into a genuine shout. “God damn it, Timothy, I warned you! I told you very specifically not to come searching. Did you think I—?”
By then, my brain was working again.
“I received no such message. I heard from you often, month after month, chronicling your travels and your … concerns—and then nothing.”
I swear that Harold grew paler than the paper of his letters. “Nothing? Not one warning?”
“Not a one.”
“I sent five. By telegram and post. God … it knew. It wouldn’t permit my cautions to reach you. Only my earlier writing, only what might draw you in….”
I rose from my chair and guided him to it. Only when he was seated, and I had taken his—and Ritzler’s—former spot against the opposite wall, did I say anything more.
“Harold, for Heaven’s sake, speak clearly! You’re raving as wildly as in your last letters! If you require a doctor—”
My brother’s laugh seemed mad enough to belie the shake of his head. “No, Timothy. My problem is not one that medicine can address.
“People disappear from the trains,” he said softly, after a minute. “All across Europe, and I would assume beyond.”
“People disappear everywhere,” I replied. “Foul play. Accidents. Or they’re hiding from their former lives. It’s hardly—”
“Oh, spare me! Do you think me ignorant of that fact? Mine was precisely the same reaction, when I first heard mutters spreading amongst the railroads’ upper echelons. It was clearly nonsense! Just standard misfortunes, blown out of proportion by the rumor mill.
“But the stories grew stranger. Whispers of men vanishing between the train and the street outside the station. Entire sleeping cars hired out by peculiar groups, who greatly disturbed the other passengers even with minimal contact. Cars from which railroad staff swore they overheard strange, pagan chants! On one particular occasion—you won’t have heard of this, it was kept from the papers—an entire train disappeared for almost two days! It simply wasn’t on its track anymore, and then it was again.”
“That’s hogwash, Harold! You can’t believe it.”
“I didn’t at the time, no. But all of it together? I figured it wouldn’t hurt to look into it. Nobody else seemed to be.”
“That was when you began your travels,” I hazarded.
“Indeed. I won’t tell you precisely who my sources were, in my search. You would find the very idea disturbing. But I did begin to figure some things out. I—How’s your geography?”
Taken aback a bit at the nonsequitur, it took me a moment to reply. “Fairly good. When one’s studying history and—”
“Yes, good. Picture a map of the continent.”
I actually had a map of the continent, but I had put it away while packing under Ritzler’s orders, and it didn’t seem worth the effort of retrieving if memory would serve as well. “Right, yes.”
“Good. Now, suppose a man were to travel from Zurich to Berlin.”
“Very well.”
“Then Berlin to Vienna.”
“Seems a bit out of the way,” I commented.
Harold scowled, but continued. “Vienna to Luxembourg. Luxembourg to Krakow. And from there back to Zurich. What do you see?”
I struggled, trying to view it all in my head. Finally, “A very rough, uneven—oh, you can’t be serious?!”
“Of course not!” he insisted. “The pentagram is far too simple a glyph to actually mean anything, religious beliefs notwithstanding. I use it to illustrate my point only. But we sketch more complicated sigils every day, and never even know it. Yes, most travelers go from here to there, and that’s the end of it, but those whose journeys are far longer? How many roads have run across the face of Europe for thousands of years? How many trains, today? Between how many stops, including towns and tributary lines you’ve never heard of?
“Those form patterns! Unseen by most human eyes, incomprehensible to human minds, consisting of shapes and geometries unlike any we have discovered, but patterns nonetheless! And patterns hold power!”
“Harold, you’re not well. Come home. We’ll get this mess with the police cleared up, and—”
“I tried to convince them to shut down some of the lines, at least until we could puzzle through. Then I thought I might make them! But I can’t. It’s too late. It won’t allow me to, even if they would.”
It was horrifying, and not a little depressing, seeing my brilliant sibling reduced to this. I began to speak again, but he was not finished.
After a deep breath to calm himself, he said, “There are others. Men and women who have come to understand as I do. Some have even seen more proof than I. The more superstitious-minded of them believe
humanity has called to something. That the unseen patterns in the roads and rails—and the wires, the trails people walk from home to car to boat, and so much more—sang out to senses we cannot begin to imagine. And that something heard us.”
“God, Harold!”
It was nonsensical, ludicrous. And yet …
People were disappearing, along stretches of the railroad connected only by the fact that they were along the railroad. Something had kept Harold’s warnings from reaching me. Had it been only one note, I’d have said it was lost in the mail, but multiple?
“It could well be a human intelligence, though,” I muttered. “A conspiracy of some sort. With war possibly looming …”
I didn’t even need to look at him to imagine his expression; I probably wore one much like it. No, that made no sense either. A conspiracy to do what? Abduct random people and make a few lunatics believe a monster did it? To what possible end?
I was certain I must be slipping into my brother’s delusion. Sane or not, though, my mind had grabbed hold of his logic’s track. There was nothing to do but follow it to its conclusion.
“Why now?” I asked, thinking aloud. “Assuming there’s any truth to what you say, if mankind were able to call on—demons or spirits or what have you—via accidental patterns, surely it should have happened long ago. The railroad can’t possibly offer any patterns that roads and paths haven’t.”
Harold nodded approvingly, as he’d done in our childhood when he’d managed to help me understand some mathematical conundrum. “Right. And so?”
“Something to do with the technology itself?”
Again he nodded, and again my mind tore off down this new track, seeking connections I’d never thought of before.
I had always viewed scientific progress as a good thing. Something to make the world better. More comprehensible. More orderly.
Madness on the Orient Express: 16 Lovecraftian Tales of an Unforgettable Journey Page 11
