[Illustration: "_M. Floçon interposed with uplifted hand_."]

The ROME EXPRESS

By Arthur Griffiths


With a frontispiece in colours
By Arthur O. Scott

1907

THE ROME EXPRESS


CHAPTER I

The Rome Express, the _direttissimo_, or most direct, was approaching
Paris one morning in March, when it became known to the occupants of the
sleeping-car that there was something amiss, very much amiss, in the
car.

The train was travelling the last stage, between Laroche and Paris, a
run of a hundred miles without a stop. It had halted at Laroche for
early breakfast, and many, if not all the passengers, had turned out. Of
those in the sleeping-car, seven in number, six had been seen in the
restaurant, or about the platform; the seventh, a lady, had not stirred.
All had reëntered their berths to sleep or doze when the train went on,
but several were on the move as it neared Paris, taking their turn at
the lavatory, calling for water, towels, making the usual stir of