The Last Passenger Has No Footprints

How it begins

Eva had sold seven tickets up the mountain. Eight people came down. One of them was dead.

She counted again from the station platform.

Two sisters in matching coats. A commercial traveler. The hotel pianist. A guide with a bandaged thumb. A woman carrying an empty birdcage. The porter.

And the man in the corner seat, whose hat had fallen into his lap.

“Don't open the doors,” she told the driver.

He had already opened them.

Snow blew into the carriage. Above the station, the cable disappeared into cloud. It had begun falling before dawn, covering every path to the upper terminus.

Eva recognized the dead man. He had bought a return ticket yesterday, though she could not remember seeing him board this morning.

His ticket lay beneath his glove.

There were two punches in it.

The driver said the upper station had been locked all night. The guide said there were no footprints in the snow. The commercial traveler asked whether this would delay lunch.

Eva took the ticket without answering.

Dr Weiss arrived from the village, breathing hard. He examined the passenger, then looked at the carriage clock.

“When did you leave the top?”

“Eleven twelve,” said the driver.

“And before that?”

“We went up empty.”

Eva turned.

The porter, standing beside the door, shook his head almost imperceptibly.

She had worked the line for twelve years. Empty was a useful word. It could mean no paying passengers, no scheduled passengers, or no passengers anyone wished to mention.

“Show me the running book,” she said.

The driver did not move.

Outside, the station bell rang for the next departure. Nobody stepped toward the car.

Eva compared the punches on the ticket. One had been made by her machine. The other was the same shape but reversed.

Someone had counted this journey from the wrong end of the mountain.