Nancy bought tickets from Thomas Cook's, beside the handsome Lausanne post office. A day's journey to Basle connected with the overnight express which ran up the Rhine to Strasbourg, Metz and Lille to Calais. She arranged drafts at the English-American Bank, and bought English books for the journey from Theodore Sack's shop in the Rue Central. Her father replied to her cable by offering a blank cheque for the rights of Dr Crippen's cure.
Eliot said nothing of his own travelling plans. He was preoccupied preparing his patients for Dr McCorquodale. On the Wednesday morning, Nancy crossed the square surrounded by staff from the hotel and the proprietor, so anxious to secure her return that he had been hovering outside her room with the assiduousness of Monsieur Mittot outside those of guests with dying relatives. The train was already in the station, stubby engine pluming smoke into the clear air. There was no sign of Eliot. Nancy looked anxiously up and down the narrow wooden platform. A minute before departure he appeared in his usual Norfolk jacket and a wide-brimmed brown trilby, over one shoulder a stone-coloured English raincoat and a canvas rucksack. Round his neck was a long brown knitted muffler, in his hand a cheap suitcase cracked at one corner and secured with a length of rope. He greeted Nancy casually, strolled past her and climbed into the third-class coach.
The train puffed down the mountain. Nancy grew angry. She had imagined socially difficult scenes between Eliot and herself on the journey but she had never imagined that he would travel third. Even Maria-Thйrиse sitting opposite was going first-class to Lausanne.
'Haven't you any more baggage?' Nancy demanded, approaching, him at Lausanne station.
'I should like to have. But this is the limit of my possessions.' Eliot's eyes turned to Maria-Thйrиse, fussing over the removal of Nancy's portmanteau from the van. 'I found a pleasant line in my Swiss Baedeker-'The enormous weight of the large trunks used by some travellers not infrequently causes serious injury to the porters who have to handle them.' People condemn men to a lifetime of invalidism, because they insist on moving round the world with sufficient hats and gloves and boots for a change every day.'
'If you are going to draw morals from everything you see, I shall avoid you all the way. Candidly, I think you're a fool. You could easily afford to travel like a gentleman.'
'I agree. Had I not better uses for my earnings than paying a bribe to discomfort.'
'If a hair shirt were the price of sable, you would still buy yourself one from your haberdashers.'
Eliot grinned. 'Perhaps you're right. You'll be staying at the Savoy?'
Nancy nodded. 'It's nine-and-sixpence a night, but there's a bath with the room. I'm surprised at that in England.'
'An Englishman does not care to pay extra for a bath. He regards it as a necessity, not a luxury. I think the Savoy's preferable to the Cecil next door, which may have a thousand rooms but is growing dreadfully shabby. My ducal connections are useful in advising on such things.'
'Where exactly is your Camden Road?' She had his address in her diary.
'Against the main railway lines north, near the Cattle Market and Pentonville Jail. There's always room for me at No 502. I lodged there since I was a medical student at St Bartholomew's.'
'Shan't you want to see your parents?'
'They're attending the Duke in Scotland. It's barely a month since the Glorious Twelfth, and their gun-barrels are still hot. Grouse, you know,' he explained.
She dropped her voice. 'When may I see you?'
'The Savoy at eleven, the morning after our arrival?'
'If you're showing me the sights, I insist on paying for the excursions. I'm sure you've far, far better use for your money than that.'
'I shan't be in the slightest embarrassed, when you feel in your handbag at Madame Tussaud's. The changing of the guard is viewed free.'
Nancy did not see Eliot when they left the crowded Lausanne train at Basle. She dined in the station restaurant, which had a star in Baedeker. She supposed he had satisfied himself with a _casse-croыte _and a bottle of beer. She noticed him on the platform only as she was handing her ticket to the conductor of her _wagon-lit._
'I shall feel awful, you sitting up all night,' she said with concern.
'I've slept on a hard chair often enough, during night duty in the receiving room at Bartholomew's.'
'We'll meet on the quai at Calais?'
'I trust not. Six in the morning is not a social hour. There's a customs examination at the French frontier, but as I doubt you're travelling with tobacco or cigars the visite will be lenient.'
She boarded the blue sleeping-car, its inside subdued hues of mahogany, brass and pink-shaded lamps. It was always exciting to take possession of an ingeniously-fitted sleeping-compartment. The smooth white linen sheet of her bunk was turned down, she found the washbasin slid neatly behind a mahogany panel, she admired herself in the gilt-scrolled glass, discovered the water carafe which was protected from rattle by an upholstered bracket, the panel of sponge-rubber for a watch at the bedhead. She turned a hinged brass handle expecting to find a wardrobe, and was looking into the empty compartment next door.
She rang the bell.
_'Mademoiselle desire quelquechose?'_ The conductor was a sallow young Frenchman in khaki jacket and kepi, with a military moustache.
_'Donnez un tour de clef а la porte, s'il vous plait,'_ she directed severely.
_'Je regrette, mademoiselle,'_ he excused himself hastily, producing master-key on chain from his trouser pocket. _'Ce compartiment n'est pas occupй.'_
'Moment-' Nancy held up her hand. _'Parlez-vous anglais?'_
'Certainly, mademoiselle.'
'Can you sell me a ticket for that berth to Calais?'
'Of course, mademoiselle.' The receipt book was already from his jacket pocket. 'One hundred and twenty-five francs.'
'Listen-you recall the English gentleman I spoke to on the steps?' He nodded. 'He is in the third class. Can you find him before the train starts?' He nodded again. She handed him the gold and silver coins, adding three francs for himself. 'But will you please tell the gentleman this. That the compartment is empty, and that I have bribed you with a franc to let him occupy it free of charge all the way to Calais.' Eliot would prefer to stand all night in the corridor, rather than sleep in luxury she had paid for. 'All this will go no further, of course,' she added reassuringly to the conductor.
He grinned and saluted. _'Entendu, mademoiselle.'_
She noticed he did not bother to lock the communicating door.
She sat on the bunk, still in her coat and hat, equally frightened that Eliot would fall for the ruse or that he would not. There was an unsubtle knock from the corridor. Eliot was outside, with his raincoat, rucksack and suitcase.
'I say, what a bit of luck,' he said heartily. 'I really wasn't relishing a night among people eating garlic sausage and young children of amazing energy. These railway officials are dreadfully corrupt, you know. But it was quick of you to take it up.' The train was sliding from the station.
Nancy smiled. 'We Yankees are sharp.'
'I'll turn in, as we're up early.'
'Yes, do. Sleep well.'
He found the unlocked door before the train had shrieked through the station at Mulhouse. In the morning, on the gusty quay at Calais, he remembered that he owed her for the conductor's franc.
7
'It'll be over there. Number 272. On the corner of Oxford Circus, opposite Peter Robinson's the drapers.'
'But I'm breathless!'
'Come on! While the bobby's holding up the traffic.'
'You treat the fair sex quite horribly.'
'All Englishmen do. We expect our women to ride like express trains and dance like butterflies, to organize our domestics with the efficiency of General Kitchener, to comfort us with the tenderness of Hйloise, and to laugh at our jokes like a music-hall audience.'