Inspector French's Greatest Case

To a comparative stay-at-home like Inspector French, who considered a run to Plymouth or Newcastle a long journey, the trailing of Jan Vanderkemp across southwest France opened up a conception of the size of the globe whereon he moved and had his being, which left him slightly awestruck. The journey from Savoy to Spain seemed endless, the distances incredible, the expanse of country between himself and home illimitable. Hour after hour he sat in the train, while elms and oaks gave place to cypresses and olives, apples to vines, and corn to maize, and it was not until daylight had gone on the evening of the second day that the train rolled into the Estacion de Francia in Barcelona.

The porter at the Beau-Sejour at Chamonix had written down the names of two or three hotels at which he thought English would be spoken, and passing out of the station, French showed the paper to a taxi driver. The man at first ogled it distrustfully, then with a smile of comprehension he emitted a rapid flood of some unknown language, opened the taxi door, bowed his fare in, and rapidly cranking his engine, set off into the night. French was conscious of being whirled down a great avenue wider than any he had yet seen, brilliantly lighted, and with rows of palms down the centre; they turned through a vast square with what looked like a commemorative column in the middle, then up a slightly narrower, tree-lined boulevard, where presently the vehicle swung into the curb and French found himself at his destination -- the Hôtel d'Orient.