The hot chocolate in Max’s mouth suddenly felt sticky and cloying. “Rupert?” she whispered.

“It’s hard to be sure. The description was a bit vague. But brown eyes, brown hair, middling height – it could be him. I haven’t seen him this morning. He wasn’t in his car when I passed.”

“And he wasn’t in his bed last night,” said Max. She felt sure it was him. She was remembering the sickening thump. “What did they say happened? How do you just accidentally fall off a train?”

“In my opinion,” said Marguerite, too quietly for anyone else to hear, “it would be difficult without some help.” And behind the houseplant, she made a little pushing motion with her hands, to show Max what she meant.

Max thought of the threatening phone call she had overheard, and felt sick. “Is he…?” She didn’t want to finish the question.

“He’s alive. Luckily. It’s a miracle anyone found him. Lying in a snowdrift. A few more hours…” Marguerite stared at the passing snow, and left the sentence lying between them, limp and unfinished. Max shuddered.

She looked at Celeste, Ester and Klaus. Who would push Rupert? Celeste, annoyed with his attention? Or, she thought, or, had he really been following Ester and Klaus? Did that phone call last night hold any clues?

She felt awful. She knew it didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t help feeling that she might have stopped it, if she had been able to tell Marguerite what she’d heard. The memory of his choked-back sob played on repeat in her head.

Klaus tapped Sister Marguerite’s shoulder, knocking her slightly off balance. Under his furious eyebrows, his eyes had widened. “Sorry,” he said, “I couldn’t help overhearing. Someone has fallen from the train?”

Max nodded, watching Klaus. He looked upset.

“We think,” said Marguerite shakily, “that it was the young British man who has been with us since Paris.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Klaus. “In the tweed? Yes, I remember him! Rupert, wasn’t it? Remember him, Ester?”

“No!” declared Ester.

“Excuse me,” Celeste cut in.

All of them turned in mild astonishment to Celeste. It was not like her to volunteer to speak. A stranger came sleepily into the restaurant car, took one look at the shattered crockery and the unlikely collection of faces gawping at Celeste, and left in haste.

“What makes you think the man was Rupert?” Celeste asked. She was staring icily at Sister Marguerite.

“Well,” said Marguerite, “the description…”

“The description was very ordinary,” said Celeste, with uncharacteristic passion. Under her freckles, her face had flushed. “Every second man fits that description. They didn’t even say that the man who fell was British. Why would you assume that it was Rupert?”