e crowd at the
ticket-window, but when I had asked and paid for my place to Locarno I
heard, to my disgust, some one else applying for a ticket to exactly
the same place, and in a voice that was strangely familiar.

On looking round I saw Jules l'Echelle, the sleeping-car conductor,
but out of uniform, and with an amused grin on his face.

"It seems that we are still to be fellow travellers," he observed
casually.

"What is taking you to Lake Maggiore? How about your service on the
car?" I asked suspiciously.

"I have business at Locarno, and have got a few days' leave to attend
to it."

I felt he was lying to me. He had been bought, I was sure. His
business was the Colonel's, who had set him to assist in watching me.
I had two enemies then to encounter, and I realized with some
misgiving that the Colonel was not a man to be despised.

CHAPTER IX.

I secured a place with difficulty; there was rather a rush for the St.
Gothard express when it ran in. It was composed as usual of corridor
carriages, all classes _en suite_, and I knew that it would be
impossible to conceal the fact that I was on board the train. Within
five minutes Jules had verified the fact and taken seats in the
immediate neighbourhood, to which he and the Colonel presently came.

"Quite a pleasant little party!" he said in a bantering tone. "All
bound for Locarno, eh? Ever been to Locarno before, Mr. Falfani?
Delightful lake, Maggiore. Many excursions, especially by steamer; the
Borromean islands well worth seeing, and Baveno and Stresa and the
road to the Simplon."

I refused to be drawn, and only muttered that I hated excursions and
steamers and lakes, and wished to be left in peace.

"A little out of sorts, I'm afraid, Mr. Falfani. Sad that. Too many
emotions, want of sleep, perhaps. You _would_ do _too_ much last
night." He still kept up his hateful babble, and Jules maddened me by
his sniggering enjoyment of my discomfiture.

More than ever did I set my brain to puzzle out some way of escaping
this horrible infliction. Was it not possible to give them the slip,
somehow, somewhere? I took the Colonel's hint, and pretended to take
refuge in sleep, and at last, I believe, I dozed off. It must have
been in my dreams that an idea came to me, a simple idea, easy of
execution with luck and determination.

It was suggested to me by the short tunnels that succeed so frequently
in the ascent of the St. Gothard Alps. They are, as most