The Man Who Watched Trains Go By

Married with two children, middle-age milquetoast Kees Popinga has led a responsible, staid and uneventful life, the last eighteen years as chief clerk at three hundred year old Julius de Koster and Sons in Groningen, his meticulous bookkeeping his pride, for a company that too prides itself on a stellar reputation. Having never traveled farther than Amsterdam, Popinga has romanticized the notion of trains, specifically the exotic places one can travel on them. When he learns that his boss, Julius de Koster, Jr., has systematically been robbing the company for "a woman", the thefts hidden from his bookkeeping, with the company on the brink of financial insolvency because of them, Popinga seizes upon an opportunity for that life he has only always dreamed. With a caseful of company money, a train ticket already inside the case, Popinga hops a train to Paris to live the high life with de Koster's woman, Michele Rozier. What Popinga is unaware of is that Michele only pretended to be in love with de Koster solely for the money, which she planned to abscond with with her lover, Louis. As such, she believes meek Popinga's come-on to her a joke, that is until she discovers he has the money. Conversely, what Popinga is aware of is that Inspector Lucas of the Paris police suspects him of several crimes most specifically the theft of the money as Lucas had previously approached his suspicions of both de Koster and Michele in something illegal in investigating the flooding of Paris with Dutch currency. What Lucas is really concerned about beyond the crimes themselves is catching Popinga before he does something worse than he has already done, such as murder.