OU_214051 UNIVERSA - Osmania University

xS MAINLY MAIGRET
When the train rounded certain bends his body pressed against
the wall of the carriage, while that of the Dutchman seemed on the
point of rolling on to the floor.
He turned down his coat-collar, but the draught on his neck
compelled him to put it up again.
" Saint-Quentin! Next stop Compiegne! "
He slipped out of the carriage into the corridor and encountered
a blast of icy wind, as one of the windows was open. On the dark
horizon glimmered the street-lamps of a sleeping town.
" It hasn't snowed here," Elie murmured.
He paced the corridor from end to end. The blinds were down
in all the carriages. He visited the lavatory, but the tension of his
nerves was such that he could do no more than look at his reflection
in the glass.
When he got back to the compartment the train was moving
again. Van der Boomp was still snoring, the leather attache-case
beneath his head faintly creaking under its weight.
Elie lit a cigarette. The match-flame did not evoke the slightest
tremor on the sleeper's face.
It was impossible to say at what moment he finally nerved himself
to do it. He took some puffs of his cigarette and the smoke had a
peculiar flavour that he recognized at once—the taste it always had
when he was suffering from a cold. He shot a quick glance at the
blinds screening them from the corridor.
The spanner had warmed up to the temperature of his hand. The
express was travelling full speed across a stretch of open country.
Without rising altogether from the seat he wriggled forward to its
extreme edge. For a moment he held the spanner poised in air,
taking aim at the centre of the man's skull. Then brought it down
with all his might.
What happened was so grotesque that he felt like breaking into
hysterical laughter. Very slowly the Dutchman's eyelids parted.
The pupils came into view. And the look that wavered up through
the dim blue light was one of blank surprise, the look of a man
who can't imagine why he has been roused from sleep. And yet a
trickle of blood was creeping forward through his hair, spreading
across his forehead.
He tried to raise his head, to see what was happening, Elie struck
again, twice, three times, ten times, infuriated by those mild,
insensate eyes staring up at him.
He stopped only when his arm grew tired and he hadn't the