Excerpt from Ruler of the Night by David Morrell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The passengers Harcourt saw through the open door didn't look like they belonged in a first-class compartment anyhow. One was a short elderly man who wore what appeared to be a suit appropriate for attending a cheap funeral. Even the single lamp in the compartment was enough to show that the little man was agitated. Although he was seated, he moved his boots up and down as though walking in place. He clenched and unclenched his hands. His face was beaded with perspiration.

Seated opposite him, the elderly man's young female companion looked peculiar also. She was attractive, Harcourt admitted, with lustrous blue eyes that turned to focus on him through the open door, but her clothing had the same look of belonging to a mourner at a cheap funeral, and she wore, in place of the fashionable hoops of ladies in society, trousers, which were evident to the observer because they extended below her skirt. No, Harcourt was definitely not inclined to spend even twenty minutes locked in a compartment with two such people.

He hurried nearer to the front of the train and peered through the next open door. Mercifully, the lamp on the wall revealed that there weren't any occupants.

The small compartment had four seats on the right and four on the left, facing each other. A farther door allowed access if the train arrived at a station that had a platform on the opposite side. There wasn't a corridor linking all the compartments; instead, each set of passengers occupied an isolated chamber.

Harcourt climbed inside and settled onto a thick cushion of blue satin. As he placed his document case and umbrella next to him, he realized how agitated he'd become during his rush to reach the train. He removed one of his gloves and touched his face, discovering that his cheeks were slippery with perspiration. Reminded of the little man in the compartment behind him, he wondered if he'd been too quick to pass judgment.

"Just in time, sir," a guard said at the open door.

"Indeed," Harcourt replied, concealing his relief.

But he wasn't the person whom the guard had addressed.

An out-of-breath man climbed into the compartment, politely looking down so that he and Harcourt wouldn't be forced to converse. In fact, the newcomer was courteous enough to move all the way over and sit near the other door. He even sat on the same side as Harcourt, relieving them of the awkwardness of facing each other.

Harcourt leaned back but couldn't relax. There hadn't been time to send a telegram to the man he was hurrying to see, but he assumed that when he reached Sedwick Hill, someone in a local tavern would be eager to earn a half crown and take a message to the nearby estate. A carriage would soon arrive for him. The household would be in a state of confusion, having been roused by his urgent summons, but when Harcourt delivered the two precious pages, he had no doubt that his client would be immensely grateful.

The guard shut the door, inserted a key, and locked it. Despite the hiss of the locomotive, Harcourt heard the scrape of metal as the guard locked the next compartment also—and the next and the next.

When Harcourt was a child, his two older brothers had locked him in a trunk in a storage room. Squeezed by the dark, narrow confines, he'd pounded at the lid, begging to be let out. The trunk's interior had become warm and damp from the accumulation of his frantic breathing. His shouts had weakened, his breath slowing, his mind blurring. Abruptly, light had blinded him as his brothers threw the lid loudly open and ran away, laughing.

Harcourt couldn't help remembering.

The man who shared his compartment seemed anxious also, sitting rigidly straight.

As the locomotive made chugging sounds, the iron pillars on the platform outside appeared to move. Through the window, Harcourt watched the soot-blackened glass ceiling recede as the train departed the station, heading north. He had difficulty concentrating on the view, if it could be called that, because of the distraction of the brass bars at the window. The bars prevented passengers from leaning out and being killed by a blow to the head from an object that the train passed. For a similar reason, each compartment was locked from the outside, lest someone accidentally open a door or even do so deliberately, foolishly peering out for a better view and then perhaps being struck by something or losing his or her balance and falling.

Excerpted from Ruler of the Night by David Morrell. Copyright © 2016 by David Morrell. Excerpted by permission of Mulholland. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.