He crossed one leg across his knee and unlaced his shoe.

The attendant came into the room.

“It is possible, monsieur, that I might hurry and fetch you your coffee in the morning,” he said.

“It is worth five francs to you if you do,” replied Hillyard.

“Then monsieur will not move from his compartment until luncheon.  I will see to it.  Monsieur will bolt his door, and in the morning I will knock when I bring the coffee.”

“Good,” returned Hillyard ungraciously.

The attendant retired, and Hillyard closed the door.  But the ventilating lattice in the lower part of the door was open, and Hillyard could see the legs of the attendant.  He was waiting outside—­waiting for what?  Hillyard smiled to himself and took down his bag from the upper berth.  He had hardly opened it when the attendant knocked and entered.

“You will not forget, monsieur, to bolt your door.  In these days it is not wise to leave it on the latch.”

“I won’t forget,” Hillyard replied surlily, and once more the attendant retired; and again he stood outside the door.  He did not move until the bolt was shot.  The attendant seemed very pleased that this fool of a tourist who thought of nothing but his infirmities should safely bolt the door of the compartments numbers 11 and 12; and very pleased, too, to bring to this churlish, discontented traveller his coffee in the morning, so that he need not leave compartments numbers 11 and 12 unguarded.  Hillyard chuckled as the attendant moved away.

“I am to be your watch-dog, am I?  Your sentinel?  Very well!  Come, let me deserve your confidence, my friend.”

The train thundered out of the tunnel and through the suburbs of Paris.  Hillyard drew a letter from Fairbairn out of his pocket and read it through.

“Compartments numbers 11 and 12 on the night train from the Quai d’Orsay station to Cerbere.  Good!” murmured Hillyard.  “Here I am in compartments numbers 11 and 12.  Now we wait until the married couple from Perpignan and the attendant are comfortably asleep.”

He undressed and went to bed, but he did not sleep.  He lay in the berth in the darkness, listening intently as the train rushed out of Paris across the plains of France.  Once or twice, as the hours passed, he heard a stealthy footstep in the corridor outside, and once the faintest possible little click told that the latch of his door had been lifted to make sure that the bolt was still shot home in its socket.  Hillyard smiled.

“You are safe, my friend,” he breathed the words towards the anxious one in the corridor.  “No one can get in.  The door is locked.  The door of the dressing-room too.  Sleep in your corner in peace.”

The train sped over a moonlit country, spacious, unhurt by war.  It moved with a steady, rhythmical throb, like an accompaniment to a tune or a phrase, ever repeated and repeated Hillyard found himself fitting words to the pulsation of the wheels.  “Berlin ...  Berne ...  Paris ...  Cerbere ...  Barcelona ...  Madrid ...  Aranjuez and the world”; and back again, reversing the order:  “Madrid ...  Barcelona ...  Cerbere ...  Paris ...  Berne ...  Berlin.”