When French had thanked the manager, distributed backsheesh among the staff, and with the help of the head porter worked out his journey from Chamonix to Barcelona, he felt his work in Savoy was done. He went exultantly to bed, and next morning left by an early train on his way to Spain. CHAPTER VI THE HOTEL IN BARCELONA 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 south-west 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. To his extreme relief, the head porter spoke English. He got him to settle with the taxi man, and soon he began to forget the fatigues of the journey with the help of a luxurious bath and dinner. He decided that he had done enough for one day, and presently, soothed by a cigar, he went out into the great street in front of the hotel, with its rows of trees and brilliant arc lamps. He did not know then that this gently-sloping boulevard was one of the famous streets of the world—the Rambla, known as is Piccadilly in London, the Champs Élysées in Paris, or Fifth Avenue in New York. For an hour he roamed, then, tired out, he returned to the Orient, and a few minutes later was sunk in dreamless slumber.