Fiona runs to catch her train

"All aboard!”

“Excuse me excuse me I’m sorry wait I promise I’ve got a ticket!”

Fiona hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with her hands. The last fifteen minutes or so were a blur. She knew she’d streaked through St. James’ Park, barely ahead of two shouting policemen, and narrowly avoided tumbling into a duckpond. And she had an unfortunately clear impression of sprinting straight through the middle of a squad of astonished beefeaters, in red coats and tall fur hats, on parade in the street outside Buckingham Palace.

Now she was shouldering her way across the platform at Victoria Station, past cockneys and costermongers and bankers and luggage attendants and greengrocers just back from their holidays. There, ahead of her… the express train to Paris! White steam puffing from its chimney, preparing to embark on the special twelve-hour overnight ferry journey to the Continent…

A whistle blew.

“Stop that girl!”

“Which one?”

“The one with no clothes on!”

“Why?”

“She’s got no clothes on!”

The train was so close! Fiona made a daring leap from the station, and barely managed in the last possible fraction of a second to insert herself in the vehicle’s final carriage. She caught just a glimpse of a pair of blue-uniformed policemen shaking their fists at her from the platform before the whistle blew, and the Paris Express departed Victoria Station for good.

She’d done it.

She’d caught her train. Despite all the trickery and devious schemes that Lady Evelyn could concoct. Of course, she still had to remedy the small matter of her state of total nudity. And she didn’t, in point of fact, have a ticket. Or any money to pay for one with. But these were manageable tertiary issues.

She was standing in a sleeper car, lined on both sides with private cabins. The narrow corridor was empty. But, Fiona knew, a steward could appear at any time. If that happened, it might be advisable to be in possession of a ticket and some clothes.

The first door she tried was locked. So was the second. She ducked gratefully into the third - a small chamber, barely big enough to fit a bunk bed, with a wide window that gave a splendid view of the rolling London suburbs. Lady Evelyn, who’d gotten here before her in a hansom cab, and who was sitting on the lower bunk bed, coughed discreetly.

“Excuse me,” she said. “I do believe this is my room.”

Fiona, who still hadn’t quite figured out what to do with her hands, opened her mouth, then shut it again.

“Yes, very definitely my room. In fact, I’m so certain of this that I’ve already sent a message to notify the conductor that the train has been invaded by a naked female lunatic, and I’d like her ejected from the vehicle as soon as possible.”

“I see,” said Fiona, eyes narrowing. “And he’s on his way, is he?”

“I do hope so.”

“Did you describe the naked female lunatic?”

“Yes, of course. I said she was naked, female and a lunatic.”

“But nothing about hair colour or the like?”

“What an odd line of inquiry. No, I thought the quality of nakedness alone should suffice to identify the lunatic in question. Why?”