Alleyn followed into her own compartment. She sat down on her bunk and stared at him. “I can’t believe that was true,” she said.

“I’m sorry you saw it.”

“Then it was true. Ought we to do anything? Rory, ought you to do anything? Oh dear, how tiresome.”

“Well, I can’t do much while moving away at sixty miles an hour. I suppose I’d better ring up the Préfecture when we get to Roqueville.”

He sat down beside her. “Never mind, darling,” he said, “there may be another explanation.”

“I don’t see how there can be, unless — Do you mind telling me what you saw?”

Alleyn said carefully, “A lighted window, masked by a spring blind. A woman falling against the blind and releasing it. Beyond the woman, but out of sight to us, there must have been a brilliant lamp and in its light, farther back in the room and on our right, stood a man in a white garment. His face, oddly enough, was in shadow. There was something that looked like a wheel, beyond his right shoulder. His right arm was raised.”

“And in his hand—?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said, “that’s the tricky bit, isn’t it?

“And then the tunnel. It was like one of those sudden breaks in an old-fashioned film, too abrupt to be really dramatic. It was there and then it didn’t exist. No,” said Troy, “I won’t believe it was true, I won’t believe something is still going on inside that house. And what a house too! It looked like a Gustave Doré, really bad romantic.”

Alleyn said: “Are you all right to get dressed? I’ll just have a word with the car attendant. He may have seen it, too. After all, we may not be the only people awake and looking out, though I fancy mine was the only compartment with the light on. Yours was in darkness, by the way?”

“I had the window shutter down, though. I’d been thinking how strange it is to see into other people’s lives through a train window.”

“I know,” Alleyn said. “There’s a touch of magic in it.”