The Secret of the Night Train

by Sylvia Bishop

  Max considered this. Marguerite could hardly point a gun at her in the middle of the bakery. She could safely go for breakfast, and just hear what her former friend had to say. So she adjusted her three scarves, stepped out into the icy morning, and followed Sister Marguerite to breakfast.

  Just crossing the road turned them both a glowing pink from the cold. Max understood now why her great-aunt had sent the hat, but Marguerite was hurrying ahead, so there was no time to stop and put it on.

  Inside, Sister Marguerite plonked down with enormous satisfaction at a table for two by the window. “Perfect!” she announced. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to have this conversation with one eye on the road, mon lapin. They’ve both gone for breakfast in the station, and I need to see when they leave – it’s absolutely crucial that I don’t lose them at this stage. But I owe you a private conversation.”

  Max didn’t know what Marguerite was talking about, but this didn’t seem to bother the nun. She groped around in her habit, never taking her eye off the station entrance, and found the houseplant for the table. Max wondered, with a chill, whether she had brushed past her gun on the way. The houseplant was followed by a crumpled bank note, which Marguerite handed to Max. Two thousand forints, it said, alongside a picture of an impressively bearded man. “Choose us something warm,” said Sister Marguerite.

  When Max came back with a plate piled high with hot pastries, Marguerite was still watching the road, still as a statue. Max followed her gaze. The cream stone front of Keleti station stared back. There was a small crowd outside, including Celeste, who was looking out across the city from a bench; and a lot of pigeons. No sign of Max’s other suspects.

  Not suspects any more, she reminded herself. She had found the thief. She was having breakfast with her.

  “So the first thing you should know,” said Marguerite, trying to take a pastry without looking and knocking over the salt instead, “is that I am very, very, very sorry about pointing a gun at you. I thought somebody dangerous was on to me, and possibly armed themselves; I never thought for the smallest second that it would be you. And between you and me, it isn’t loaded.” She successfully located a kakaós csiga, a “chocolate snail”, and took a bite. “Generally,” she said through her mouthful, “I find that you can have the same effect just waving the thing around and using a bit of cunning.”

  “But why do you need—”

  “Getting to that!” Marguerite waved her csiga about in agitation. “We don’t have much time, mon lapin, I must say all the important bits quickly. And you must listen just as quickly: ready?”

  Max folded her arms and leaned back, to show that she wasn’t anybody’s lapin yet. But she nodded.

  “Number one –” Marguerite held up one finger “– I am not the thief. Number two –” two fingers “– the thief is certainly travelling with us by train. And to explain how I know that, I should begin by telling you thing number three…” Three fingers, and then her hand dived back into her habit, and she produced a battered leather wallet. “Before I was a nun, Max, I was a commandant. And a much better one than that idiot Le Goff. I specialized in the international black market for diamonds and jewels.”

  Max picked up the wallet, and opened it. A younger Marguerite stared out, dressed in a shirt and with her hair scraped into a skew-whiff bun. The word POLICE was stamped below her in red, along with a lot of small print, and there was a shiny silver badge on the other half of the wallet. Max studied it suspiciously. It looked real.

  “I wanted to carry on,” sighed Marguerite. “But the police said they couldn’t have a nun for a commandant, and the convent weren’t too keen on having a commandant for a nun. I had to choose, so officially, I’ve given it up.”

  “And unofficially?” said Max. She looked from the policewoman to the nun, and back again. The same kink in the nose, the same amused twist to the mouth.

  “Unofficially, I’ve been on the case of the Phantoms for a long time. I’ve still got connections all over the place, from my commandant days. A good friend of mine in Istanbul – his name’s Salem, you can meet him when we get there, mon lapin – he was on the trail of one of them. Someone very low down the pecking order, we think, or possibly just a hired hand who didn’t really know who she was working for. Anyway, she was mostly just on lowly errands, and one of them was to post those letters that you saw. Salem used to sneak into her house and make copies of them first, and post the copies to me. We think someone must have seen him getting away one night, though, because they stopped passing messages that way a few weeks ago.

  “It’s a very intriguing set-up. They must be paranoid about their phones being tapped, which is how their tiara heist was foiled a while back.” Max remembered this from the paper, and made a mental note to underline this in her notebook. “It’s a good system – the police aren’t going to check every innocent-looking letter going out of Istanbul. But I’ve visited the house that the letters are addressed to, and it’s empty, and no one ever shows up to collect the post. So why are the Phantoms sending letters that don’t seem to be read by anyone? Now, that’s a mystery, and if you can solve that, mon lapin, I’ll buy you all the pastries you can eat.

  “Anyway, as you saw, the letters told me that the diamond would be leaving Paris by train yesterday, and heading to Istanbul along our route. Clever idea. There’s too much security on an aeroplane, but they’re better off travelling in public if they can, instead of driving through the middle of nowhere. The police might not have a clue who they are, but you can bet that some other pretty nasty criminals are on to them, and they’d all like that diamond. Travel by train, and no one can surprise you in the middle of the night. Not as easily, anyway.”

  Max was sure by now that the police badge was real. It was flawless. And besides, it was just not possible to believe that Sister Marguerite was a liar. She chewed some csiga, and tried to hold all the new information together in her head.

  She couldn’t help feeling that they ought to tell someone what they knew. And then it occurred to her that maybe Sister Marguerite had already done that. “Were you the anonymous tip-off? You told the police?”

  Marguerite nodded and spread her hands, as if to say What’s a nun to do? “I tried, Max. But I was pretty sure that man was going to bungle it. He’s useless. So I thought I’d better come too, and you gave me the perfect excuse. I was very stern with your maman about which day I wanted to leave. I got hold of a passenger list for the TGV – another useful friend – and based on that, I was sure that Rupert Nobes was our man. He’s been up in court plenty of times for cons and theft, but they’ve never quite been able to pin it on him.”

  Of all the surprising information, this last piece surprised Max the most. “But he seems so…” she searched for the right word “– useless.”

  “Doesn’t he just? Quite a disappointment in the flesh. Still, he’s smarter than he looks.” Sister Marguerite licked crumbs from her fingers. “But now, the catch. Ester Rosenkrantz wasn’t on that list – she must have bought her ticket on the day. And that changes things. Ester’s one of the most obsessive jewel collectors around. She doesn’t have a criminal past exactly, but she’s … ruthless. And she keeps her jewels at Fort, too, which might give her an opportunity. So, mon lapin –” and Sister Marguerite spread her hands “– Ester says she is on holiday with her nephew, and Rupert told me yesterday that he’s going to visit a friend. Who’s lying? Who is our thief?”

  “What about Klaus?”

  “Oh, he’s new to me. I suppose we have to assume he might be working with Ester. But I rather like him.”

  “Me too,” said Max. The balloon of excitement inside her was back, and swelling and swelling, and she had finally shaken off her homesickness. The game was real after all! And her friend was a real friend and not trying to kill her – which was a definite plus – and she was sitting in a brand-new city eating pastries with names that she couldn’t pronounce, and the whole glowing day was ahead of her.

>   “There’s one other person going all the way,” she said, keen to show off her work. “Celeste Le Blanc.” And she told Sister Marguerite about her night-time search, and the strange warning from “M”. Marguerite looked impressed. She was still staring at Keleti station, so it looked as though she was impressed by the pigeons, but Max knew it was really for her.

  “I’m glad you took a look, mon lapin,” said Marguerite. “It was stupidly dangerous, but since you pulled it off, I’m glad.” She knitted her fingers together and rested her chin on them thoughtfully. “Celeste’s probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time – although the note is strange, I agree. I’ll keep her in mind. But we can’t tail all of them. Let’s stick to Rupert and Ester: they’ve got history.”

  Max stared at her. “We’re following people?”

  “I was hoping so. I badly need some more information before we arrive at Istanbul.” She did her best to look earnestly at Max without losing sight of the road. “Will you help me? It’s up to you. I promise you can trust me, mon lapin.”

  Max looked out at Budapest, flooded with wintry light, and felt like she could go anywhere and do anything. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll help.”

  “Excellent,” cried Sister Marguerite, pounding the table. She grinned. “Then you follow Ester Rosenkrantz. I’ll take Rupert Nobes. Try and stay out of sight when you can, but don’t let her lose you.” She reached into her habit and put some more forint notes on the table. “Take these in case you need to pay to get in anywhere. Stick to her – you never know when she might reveal something crucial. And scribble down anything interesting she does in that notebook of yours.”

  Max folded up the forints and put them in her coat pocket. Suddenly, Sister Marguerite sat bolt upright and grabbed her arm. “Ester and Klaus!” she hissed.

  Sure enough, the pair had appeared between the cream pillars. Max could tell that Ester was talking, because pigeons were taking off left and right in alarm.

  “There’s your mark! Go, go, go!” said Marguerite, flapping her hands about in high excitement. Max hurried to her feet, untangling all her scarves from the chair and grabbing her case. She had a hundred more questions – some of them important ones, like, “If I lose them, how will I find my way back?” – but there was no time. She hurried to the door.

  “Oh, and Max—”

  “Yes?”

  Sister Marguerite was still watching the road like a hawk. Or, thought Max, a sillier, stringier bird – an ostrich, maybe. But even if she was silly, she had turned out to be a friend after all – a friend and a detective and an adventure all rolled into one.

  The nun gave her a thumbs up, without turning round. “Good luck.”

  Klaus and Ester paused outside the station, so that Ester could explain to a busker all the ways in which he was annoying her. Max waited for them behind a statue of a man-on-a-horse (it turned out that even in this strange new country, miles away from her own, all the statues were still of a man-on-a-horse), and while she waited she put on Great-Aunt Elodie’s hat. It was warm and heavy, and when she tucked her plaits up inside it, it felt a bit like a disguise.

  Then they were on their way, the busker left weeping into his violin behind them.

  (Kind-hearted readers need not be too upset about the busker. He went home and put away his violin, which he never played again; but he took up gardening instead. He turned out to be very good, and won a lot of prizes. He even created a new kind of rose, and he called it domine irasceris, which is Latin for “angry lady”, because he was so grateful to the woman who had terrified him into finding a new hobby.

  His name was Erik, if you were wondering. Erik Filep.

  But that is quite enough about Erik Filep. Ester and Klaus must not be let out of our sight: and they were, as I said, on their way.)

  They set off down a busy main road. It was lined with buildings that looked to Max like huge fondant fancies – each a different pastel colour, and covered in curling stonework. They were beautiful. Surprisingly, they all had very ordinary shops on the ground floors, with lit-up flashing signs.

  Klaus thought it was all very lovely, and kept exclaiming at everything, while Ester retreated further and further inside her furs in high grump. It was easy enough for Max to slip along behind them, blending in to the crowd, a shadow in a bobble hat. Ester could scuttle along surprisingly fast, but it helped that Klaus was about a foot taller than everyone else, so Max never really had to worry about losing them.

  Things got trickier when they turned right, down a residential street. The pavement was empty, apart from a line of leafless trees, silver and silent. Max was neither silver nor silent (although she was leafless, I suppose), so the trees weren’t much use for blending-in purposes. She hung back at the corner of the street, not wanting to get too close.

  Her quarry came to a halt outside one of a terraced row of town houses. Klaus rang a doorbell. Ester rang it four more times, just to make sure, then banged on the door for good measure.

  Max had to think quickly. Should she try and slip in behind them? But there was no way that she could do that unseen. She would have to try and talk her way in afterwards. Although, of course, she didn’t speak any Hungarian.

  The door opened, and Ester and Klaus vanished inside.

  Max hurried along behind them, and looked at the building. It was a drab brown, like a moth between butterflies, and it had a silver plaque which read:

  21 TÉLI ÚT

  MAREK, MAREK ÉS RUSZY:

  AUKCIÓSHÁZ

  Then three more slim plaques, with a name each:

  ISTVAN MAREK

  DANIEL MAREK

  HANNA RUSZY

  Max didn’t think that Marek, Marek and Ruszy, whoever they were, would just let in any old eleven-year-old, so she was going to need to pretend something to get through that door. She was good at pretending. Her plaits were not available for tugging, so she pulled at the bobble on her hat instead, and thought.

  Then she knelt down on the pavement and opened her case. She took out Great-Aunt Elodie’s parcel, which by now only contained the postcard and the letter (Max’s tickets were in a pouch round her neck for safekeeping). She tore a page out of her notebook, and found the superglue that she had picked up when Sister Marguerite left it behind. With that, she glued the parcel shut, glued the paper to the front to cover her address, and wrote on it: Istvan Marek, 21 Téli Út, Budapest.

  She crossed her fingers, and rang the doorbell.

  The door was opened by a small, neat man in a doorman’s uniform, who made a small, neat “O” of surprise with his mouth when he saw Max, and frowned a small, neat frown as she pushed past him into the hallway.

  The room was wood-panelled and dark, and smelled of polish and wealth. Along one wall there were three doors, and from the furthest away, Max could hear the tumultuous rumbles of Ester Rosenkrantz. There was another door at the end of the hall, and against the other wall were two wooden chairs, squatting under an oil painting of some deflated spaniels, and a hatstand.

  Max sat on one of the chairs as haughtily as she could, and tried to look as polished and important as the hallway. The bobble of her hat fell forward with an undignified flump as she sat. She wished she had thought to take it off.

  The man said something in Hungarian that sounded small and neat and quite annoyed. Which was fair enough. Max held out the parcel, and said firmly, “Istvan Marek.”

  The man reached out his hand to take it. Max couldn’t let him do that. It was her only reason for being there.

  “I have to give it to him myself. Very secret,” she said, pressing a finger to her lips to make up for her meaningless French. She rubbed the tips of her fingers together, like a gangster talking about money. “Very valuable.”

  The man folded his arms, and unfolded them again, and tried folding up his forehead instead. He clearly wasn’t sure how cross to be. On the one hand, people were not meant to turn up in this exclusive hallway uninvited and start playing charades
with parcels. On the other hand, eleven-year-old girls with plaits spilling out of their bobble hats were not exactly the kind of nuisance he had been hired to keep out.

  “He is busy,” said the man, trying English to bridge their language gap.

  Max sat up very straight in her chair. In her best English, she announced, “I wait.”

  Before the man could disagree, a phone rang from somewhere further down the hall. The man looked towards the ringing. He looked at Max. He looked at the ringing again. He did a little shifty dance of confusion. The phone call was obviously important.

  He made up his mind. “Wait there,” he said. And he tapped away down the hall with small, neat, very hasty steps.

  As soon as he was gone, Max was across the hallway, and had one ear to the third door.

  A sign proclaimed that it was the office of ISTVAN MAREK himself. Istvan’s voice was breathy and soft, barely dribbling through the door. Ester was loud and clear. At first Max assumed that they were speaking Hungarian, but the words were sort of smoother round the edges than the Hungarian she had heard, and she realized as she listened that they too were using English. There was a clicking noise just to the left of the door; she guessed that Klaus had been left to sit and knit while they talked.

  She got out her notebook. She wished her English was better: she could only understand the odd word.

  Even so, she could tell that Ester was not happy about something. More not happy than usual. Every time Istvan Marek said something soft and reasonable, there was an answering thump of Ester pounding some unseen furniture, and her voice would get a notch louder.

  Max scribbled down what she could understand. There was “much too cheap”, and “very good price”, and the word “stupid” a lot. She strained to hear more. Was Ester trying to sell something? Could it be the diamond? If so, it didn’t sound like they were going to reach an agreement.