Gare d’Austerlitz

Gare d’Austerlitz serves as a hinge in The Jackal’s Paris movements: he arrives there by express, slips away in the guise of a clergyman, then returns to dispose of incriminating luggage and change his appearance. Its platforms and left-luggage office let him turn a trail of identities into a series of separate, movable disguises, while the police converge on the station only moments after he has left.

Arrival and the police response

The eight-ten express arrives at Gare d’Austerlitz precisely on time. Among its first passengers to reach the taxi rank is a tall, grey-haired figure wearing a dog collar, with three bags. He loads them into a Mercedes diesel and leaves the station forecourt as a passenger under the name Pastor Jensen.

The timing brings the pursuers close. After Valentin works out when the morning train is due in Paris, Lebel rushes from the office and calls Caron to follow. As the taxi descends towards the street, its driver and passenger hear sirens; three squad cars and two Black Marias sweep into the entrance and stop before the station hall. The taxi is already pausing at the exit, so the police arrive just after the disguised fugitive has slipped away.

Luggage and changing identities

The Jackal returns to Gare d’Austerlitz by cruising taxi, reasoning that the search will have shifted elsewhere. At the left-luggage office he deposits the suitcase containing his gun and the military greatcoat and clothes of the fictitious Frenchman André Martin. He keeps the case holding Marty Schulberg’s clothes and papers, as well as a hand-grip containing make-up. The station is therefore not simply a point of arrival: it lets him separate the weapons and clothing associated with one identity from the items needed to assume another.

After checking into a small hotel nearby, he removes the grey dye, restores his blond hair, colours it chestnut brown, and changes into the American student’s clothes. He leaves the clerical suit and Pastor Jensen’s passport in a suitcase in the hotel wardrobe, then escapes by the fire-escape. A few minutes later he deposits the hand-grip at the station’s left-luggage office, puts the docket for this second case with the docket for the first, and takes a taxi back across Paris.

A temporary refuge in the route

From Gare d’Austerlitz, The Jackal reaches the Latin Quarter, where he disappears among students and young people. The station’s role in this sequence is practical and transient: it connects rail arrival, taxi escape, hidden luggage, and a further change of appearance without offering lasting safety. At lunch, he already doubts that Pastor Jensen will survive Lebel’s scrutiny for long and gives Marty Schulberg no more than twenty-four hours. The station thus marks not a secure retreat but another short interval in a pursuit driven by identities that must continually be abandoned.