Cover

SO MUCH FOR A VACATION . . .

We had just reached the window when we heard the scream.

It was like no sound I had ever heard, thin and high and horribly final. The station was huge and noisy but the scream cut through the crowd like a scalpel. Everybody stopped and turned to see where it had come from. Even Tim heard it. “Oh dear,” he said. “It sounds like someone has stepped on a cat.”

Already a police car had arrived and several uniformed guards were hurrying toward the trains. I strained to hear what the crowd was saying. They were speaking French, of course. That didn’t make it any easier.

“What’s happened?”

“It’s terrible. Somebody has fallen under a train.”

“It was a steward. He was on the train from London. He fell off a platform.”

“Is he hurt?”

“He’s dead. Crushed by a train.”

I heard all of it. I understood some of it. I didn’t like any of it. A steward? Off the London train? Somehow I didn’t need to ask his name.

“Tim,” I asked, “what’s the French for murder?”

Tim shrugged. “Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know.” I stepped onto the escalator and allowed it to carry me down. “I’ve just got a feeling it’s something we’re going to need.”

Three Diamond Brothers Mysteries

BOOKS BY ANTHONY HOROWITZ

The Devil and His Boy

THE ALEX RIDER ADVENTURES

Stormbreaker

Point Blank

Skeleton Key

Eagle Strike

Scorpia

Ark Angel

THE DIAMOND BROTHERS MYSTERIES

Public Enemy Number Two

The Falcon’s Malteser

Three of Diamonds

South By Southeast

Title Page

Three Diamond Brothers Mysteries

ANTHONY HOROWITZ

THE BLURRED
MAN

THE PEN PAL

I knew the American was going to mean trouble, the moment he walked through the door. He only made it on the third attempt. It was eleven o’clock in the morning but clearly he’d been drinking since breakfast—and breakfast had probably come out of a bottle, too. The smell of whiskey was so strong it made my eyes water. Drunk at eleven o’clock! I didn’t like to think what it was doing to him, but if I’d been his liver I’d have been applying for a transplant.

He managed to find a seat and slumped into it. The funny thing was, he was quite smartly dressed: a suit and a tie that looked expensive. I got the feeling straightaway that this was someone with money. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and as far as I could tell we were talking real gold. He was about forty years old, with hair that was just turning gray and eyes that were just turning yellow. That must have been the whiskey. He took out a cigarette and lit it. Blue smoke filled the room. This man would not have been a good advertisement for the National Health Service.