THE EARLESS MAN WITH HIS HEAD OUT OF THE WINDOW
Let us state this geometrical problem in the simplest words: an express
train has to cover the ground between two little stations three miles
apart. It is announced at the second when it passes the first; and yet
they wait for it at the second in vain. They hurry from both stations
down the line to find the wreck; but they do not so much as find the
train, an express train in which there are perhaps a hundred passengers.
That the station-master of A should have fallen down dead at the shock
of this unheard-of, bewildering, stupefying, absurd, diabolical,
and yet how simple (as we shall learn later) disappearance of the
train, is not greatly to be wondered at. The minds of all of them
were shaken by the occurrence. The station-master of B was not in a
much better condition than his colleague. Everyone present uttered
incoherent cries. They kept calling the train, as if the train could
have answered! They did not hear it, and on that flat plain they did
not see it! The ticket-clerk of station A knelt down beside the body
of his chief, and presently said, "I am quite sure he is dead!" The
rest gathered round the body of the dead man; and then, tearing up two
of the little trees from the side of the road which runs beside the
railway, they laid him on them. Carrying the body on this rude litter,
they returned towards station A. We must bear in mind that the express
had passed station B, and that no one had seen it reach station A.
But they had not yet reached station A when, on the line, _on the line
along which they had just come_, they perceived a railway-carriage, or
rather a railway-carriage and a guard's-van! They greeted the sight in
their excitable French way with the howls of madmen. Where did this
end of a train come from? And what had become of the beginning of the
train, that is to say, of the engine, the tender, the dining-car, and
the three corridor carriages?
Look at the plan. C marks the point on the line at which the staffs
of stations A and B met, when they were hunting for the train.
It is also the point at which the station-master of A fell down
dead. The two staffs then, in a body, were bringing back the dead
station-master towards A, when at the point D, a point they had passed
a few minutes before, and at which they had seen nothing, they find a
railway-carriage and a guard's-van.
These people greeted this sight with the cries of madmen; and then
they perceived an odd-looking head looking out of one of the windows
of the railway-carriage. It waggled. This head had no ears; and the
earless man _had his head out of the carriage window_. They shouted to
him. From the moment they caught sight of him they asked him what had
happened. But the man did not answer. The odd thing was that his head
waggled from left to right, as if it were moved by the wind which was
blowing at the time with some force. It was a head with crinkly hair.
It was bent downwards; and the cravat round a high collar, very white
on that grey day, was untied and streaming in the wind.
At last when they came quite near (they moved slowly owing to the
fact that they were carrying the station-master) they saw clearly the
shocking reality. The man not only had his head out of the window,
he had also got it caught in the window. The unfortunate wretch must
have opened the window and stuck his head out while the train was in
motion; and the window must have been jerked up violently and cut his
head half off! On seeing this, the two staffs howled afresh; then they
set down the body of the station-master, ran round the guard's-van, _in
which there was nobody_, and opening a door on the other side of the
carriage, they found that it was empty, except for the man _whose head
was caught in the window_, and that his body, inside the carriage, was
_stripped of every rag of clothing_.
The news of these fantastic horrors at once spread throughout the
district. An enormous crowd thronged the platforms of station A all the
rest of the day. The chief officials of the line came from Paris. Not
only were they unable to explain, on that day and the days following,
the death of the man who had had his head out of the carriage window,
but they were still unable to find either the train or the passengers.
They talked of nothing but this strange affair at the funeral of the
station-master of A, which was celebrated with great solemnity, and
also throughout Europe and America.