Page:Gaston Leroux--The man with the black feather.djvu/274

250 seen it. But Theophrastus waited for the train and waited for the train and waited for the train. He waited for it as the signal-man at station A had waited for it; and he no more saw the express than did the signal-man at A and the rest of the officials of the line.

The express had disappeared for M. Longuet as it had disappeared for the rest of the world.

So much so that, tired of waiting, M. Longuet walked down as far as H to see what was happening. There he saw the staff of A, which was hurrying towards B in its search for the express. He asked himself sadly what could have become of the express; and finding no answer to the question, he walked up H I, and when he arrived at K, which he had just left, he found the empty guard's-van and the railway-carriage which a few minutes later the two staffs were to find at D!

Once more he swore by the throttle of Mme. Phalaris, and buried his brow in his hands, asking himself how that guard's-van and that carriage came to be there, since the express itself had not come. It had not come, since he, Theophrastus, had not quitted the track.

Suddenly he saw the head of a man waggling out of the window of the railway-carriage;