The Numbered Account Read Online Free PDF Page A

from Glentoran on the plane after Julia’s, the first on which he could get a seat; he had brought all these documents round to her club, and they went through them together—the other occupants of the half-empty room appeared mostly to be deaf or blind, or both. Julia read through the papers carefully. They were addressed to
Messieurs les Directeurs
of the Banque Républicaine in Geneva.
    â€˜Oh, so they do at least know the name of the bank,’ she said, folding them up and putting them in her handbag. ‘Only a photostat of the will. I see.’
    â€˜Yes, but you also see that Judkins and Judkins have had it attested by a Commissioner for Oaths. Honestly, I think you’ve got everything you need now, bar the actual number, which old de Ritter, the guardian, will give you.’
    â€˜Let’s hope he will,’ Julia had said.
    Experienced passengers on cross-Channel steamers book a steward the moment they get on board to taketheir luggage ashore on the further side, and see them through the
Douane
and into their sleepers; Julia, who usually flew to France, failed to do this till too late. Her French porter, in spite of bribes and adjurings, as usual collected eight other people’s luggage beside hers, and kept her and Watkins waiting for more than twenty minutes in the Customs shed before he appeared, behind a barrow piled nearly as high as Mont Blanc. This
contretemps
prevented Julia from checking on the movements of the girl with the extraordinary resemblance to Aglaia; through the dusty, dirty windows she thought she caught a glimpse of her boarding the Paris train, but she could not be sure. Oh well, it was probably just a coincidence. For the rest of the evening she was diverted by Watkins’s reactions to foreign food, and to adjusting her undressing to a sleeper.
    The Swiss Customs examination on trains from Calais now takes place at Berne; sleepy, hungry, and feeling generally dishevelled, Julia secured a porter, a tall fair middle-aged man, for their hand-luggage, and deposited this, with Watkins, in the pleasant station restaurant—then she went off to the Customs. Another
contretemps—
their registered luggage had not arrived. Julia, indignant, insisted coolly but persistently in her rather moderate German on being taken to see someone in authority, and was eventually led by the tall porter to a small office adjoining that of the station-master; here she made her complaint to two well-educated, civil-spoken men, who took down all details and asked where she was going?
    â€˜To Gersau—and the luggage must come on at once,
frei,’
Julia said firmly.
    Oh the delightful helpful Swiss, so unlike surly French officialdom, she thought, as her address in Gersau was noted, and she was promised that the missing luggage would be sent on as soon as it arrived in Berne. ‘This must have happened in France—in France
anything
can happen!’ one of the officials said. ‘We regret the inconvenience to the Fräulein.’ Julia laughed, thanked him, and went back to the restaurant to tuck into coffee and rolls-and-butter with Watkins.
    Emerging some two hours later from the high airy station at Lucerne and crossing the open space outside it to the quay, the lovely heat hit them—blazing sun, brilliant sky, the cobbles and tarmac almost incandescent. ‘My word, Miss, I shall be glad to get into a cottom dress,’ Watkins observed. ‘But this is a clean, pretty place,’ the English maid added, casting an approving glance at the trim beds full of bright flowers. ‘This seems a clean country—I noticed the fields and gardens as we came along. That last train was clean, too. I do like things clean!’
    Watkins’s desire for a cotton frock diminished on the lake steamer, whose swift passage over the blue-green waters made sitting on the deck quite chilly. They retreated into the saloon, where Watkins gazed out through the windows,