The Edge (16 page)

‘You are,’ she said, ‘an extraordinary young man.’

She stumped me again.

‘But Bill knew you existed,’ she said, ‘and he told me he didn’t recognise you face to face.’

‘He was looking for the environment he knew … straight hair, no sunglasses, a good grey suit, collar and tie.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If I meet you, will I know you?’

‘I’ll tell you.’

‘Pact.’

This, I thought with relief and enjoyment, was some carrier pigeon.

‘Would you give Bill some messages?’ I asked.

‘Fire away. I’ll write them down.’

‘The train reaches Winnipeg tomorrow evening at about seven-thirty, and everyone disembarks to go to hotels. Please would you tell Bill I will not be staying at the same hotel as the owners, and that I will again not be going to the President’s lunch, but that I will be at the races, even if he doesn’t see me.’

I paused. She repeated what I’d said.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘And would you ask him some questions?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Ask him for general information on a Mr and Mrs Young who own a horse called Sparrowgrass.’

‘It’s on the train,’ she said.

‘Yes, that’s right.’ I was surprised, but she said Bill had given her a list to be a help with messages.

‘Ask him,’ I said, ‘if Sheridan Lorrimore has ever been in any trouble that he knows of, apart from assaulting an actor at Toronto, that should have resulted in Sheridan going to jail.’

‘Gracious me. The Lorrimores don’t go to jail.’

‘So I gathered,’ I said dryly, ‘and would you also ask which horses are running at Winnipeg and which at Vancouver, and which in Bill’s opinion is the really best horse on the train, not necessarily on form, and which has the best chance of winning either race.’

‘I don’t need to ask Bill the first question, I can answer that for you right away, it’s on this list. Nearly all the eleven horses, nine to be exact, are running at Vancouver. Only Upper Gumtree and Flokati run at Winnipeg. As for the second, in my own opinion neither Upper
Gumtree nor Flokati will win at Winnipeg because Mercer Lorrimore is shipping his great horse Premiere by horse-van.’

‘Um …’ I said. ‘You follow racing quite a bit?’

‘My dear young man, didn’t Bill tell you? His father and I owned and ran the
Ontario Raceworld
magazine for years before we sold it to a conglomerate.’

‘I see,’ I said faintly.

‘And as for the Vancouver race,’ she went on blithely, ‘Laurentide Ice might as well melt right now, but Sparrowgrass and Voting Right are both in with a good chance. Sparrowgrass will probably start favourite as his form is consistently good, but as you ask, very likely the best horse, the one with most potential for the future, is Mercer Lorrimore’s Voting Right, and I would give that one the edge.’

‘Mrs Baudelaire,’ I said, ‘you are a gem.’

‘Beyond the price of rubies,’ she agreed. ‘Anything else?’

‘Nothing, except … I hope you are well.’

‘No, not very. You’re kind to ask. Goodbye, young man. I’m always here.’

She put the receiver down quickly as if to stop me from asking anything else about her illness, and it reminded me sharply of my Aunt Viv, bright, spirited and horse mad to the end.

I went back to the dining car to find Oliver and Cathy laying the tables for dinner, and I helped them automatically, although they said I needn’t. The job done, we repaired to the kitchen door to see literally what was cooking and to take the printed menus from Angus to put on the tables.

Blinis with caviar, we read, followed by rack of lamb or cold poached salmon, then chocolate mousse with cream.

‘There won’t be any over,’ Cathy sighed, and she was right as far as the blinis went, though we all ate lamb in the end.

With ovens and gas burners roaring away, it was wiltingly hot even at the dining room end of the kitchen. Down where the chef worked, a temperature gauge on the wall stood at 102° Fahrenheit, but tall willowy Angus, whose high hat nearly brushed the ceiling, looked cool and unperturbed.

‘Don’t you have air-conditioning?’ I asked.

Angus said, ‘In summer, I dare say. October is however officially winter, even though it’s been warm this year. The air-conditioning
needs freon gas which has all leaked away, and it won’t be topped up again until spring. So Simone tells me.’

Simone, a good foot shorter and with sweat trickling down her temples, mutely nodded.

The passengers came straggling back shedding overcoats and saying it was cold outside, and again the dining car filled up. The Lorrimores this time were all sitting together. The Youngs were with the Unwins from Australia and Filmer and Daffodil shared a table with a pair Nell later identified to me as the American owners of the horse called Flokati.

Filmer, extremely smooth in a dark suit and grey silk tie, solicitously removed Daffodil’s chinchillas and hung them over the back of her chair. She shimmered in a figure-hugging black dress, diamonds sparkling whenever she moved, easily outstripping the rest of the company (even Mavis Bricknell) in conspicuous expenditure.

The train made its smooth inconspicuous departure and I did my stuff with water and breadsticks.

Bambi Lorrimore put her hand arrestingly on my arm as I passed. She was wearing a mink jacket and struggling to get out of it.

‘Take this back into our private car, will you?’ she said. ‘It’s too hot in here. Put it in the saloon, not the bedroom.’

‘Certainly, madam,’ I agreed, helping her with alacrity. ‘I’d be glad to.’

Mercer produced a key and gave it to me, explaining that I would come to a locked door.

‘Lock it again when you come back.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He nodded and, carrying the coat away over my arm, I went back through the dome car and with a great deal of interest into the private quarters of the Lorrimores.

There were lights on everywhere. I came first to a small unoccupied sleeping space, then a galley, cold and lifeless. Provision for private food and private crew, but no food, no crew. Beyond that was the locked door, and beyond that a small handsome dining room to seat eight. Through there, down a corridor, there were three bedrooms, two with the doors open. I took a quick peek inside: bed, drawers, small bathroom with shower. One was clearly Xanthe’s, the other by inference Sheridan’s. I didn’t go into the parents’ room but went on beyond it to find myself in the rear part of the carriage, at the very end of the train.

It was a comfortable drawing room with a television set and abundant
upholstered armchairs in pastel blues and greens. I went over to the rear door and looked out, seeing a little open boarding platform with a polished brass-topped balustrade and, beyond, the Canadian Pacific’s single pair of rails streaming away into darkness. The railroad across Canada, I’d learned, was single track for most of the way. Only in towns and at a few other places could trains going in opposite directions pass.

I put the mink coat on a chair and retraced my journey, locking the door again and eventually returning the key to Mercer who nodded without speech and put it in his pocket.

Emil was pouring wine. The passengers were scoffing the blinis. I eased into the general picture again and became as unidentifiable as possible. Few people, I discovered, looked directly at a waiter’s eyes, even when they were talking to him.

About an hour after we’d left Sudbury we stopped briefly for under five minutes at a place called Cartier and then went on again. The passengers, replete with the lamb and chocolate mousse, lingered over coffee, and began to drift away to the dome car’s bar and lounge. Xanthe Lorrimore got up from the table after a while and went that way, and presently came back screaming.

This time, the real thing. She came stumbling back into the dining car followed by a commotion of people yelling behind her.

She reached her parents who were bewildered as well as worried.

‘I was nearly killed,’ she said frantically. ‘I nearly stepped off into space. I mean, I was
nearly killed.’

‘Darling,’ Mercer said calmingly, ‘what has exactly happened?’

‘You don’t understand.’ She was screaming, trembling, hysterical. ‘I nearly stepped into space because our private car
isn’t there.’

It brought both of the Lorrimores to their feet in an incredulous rush, but they had only to look at the faces crowding behind her to know it was true.

‘And they say, all those people say …’ she was gasping, half unable to get the words out, terribly frightened ‘… they say the other train, the regular Canadian, is only half an hour behind us, and will smash into … will smash into … don’t you
see
?’

The Lorrimores, followed by everyone still in the dining room, went dashing off into the dome car, but Emil and I looked at each other, and I said, ‘How do we warn that train?’

‘Tell the Conductor. He has a radio.’

‘I’ll go,’ I said. ‘I know where his office is. I’ll find him.’

‘Hurry then.’

‘Yes.’

I hurried. Ran. Reached George’s office.

No one there.

I went on, running where I could, and found him walking back towards me through the dayniter. He instantly took in that I brought bad news and steered me at once into the noisy outside coupling space between the dayniter and the central dining car.

‘What is it?’ he shouted.

‘The Lorrimores’ private car is unhitched … it’s somewhere back on the track, and the Canadian is coming.’

He moved faster than I would have thought anyone could on a train and was already talking into a radio headset when I reached his office.

‘The private car was there at Cartier,’ he said. ‘I was off the train there and saw it. Are you sure it’s not in sight?’ He listened. ‘Right, then radio to the Canadian and warn the Conductor he’ll not be leaving Cartier, eh? I’ll get this train stopped and we’ll go back for the lost car. See what’s what. You’d better inform Toronto and Montreal. They won’t think this is very funny on a Sunday evening, eh?’ He chuckled and looked at me assessingly as I stood in his doorway. ‘I’ll leave someone here manning the radio,’ he continued. ‘Tell him when you’ve got the Canadian understanding the situation, eh?’

He nodded at the reply he heard, took off the headset and gave it to me.

‘You are talking to the despatcher in Schreiber,’ he said, ‘– that’s ahead of us, this side of Thunder Bay – and he can radio straight to the Canadian following us. You can hear the despatcher without doing anything. To transmit, press the button.’ He pointed, and was gone.

I put on the headset and sat in his chair and presently into my ears a disembodied voice said, ‘Are you there?’

I pressed the button, ‘Yes.’

‘Tell George I got the Canadian and it will stop in Cartier. There’s a CP freight train due behind it but I got Sudbury in time and it isn’t leaving there. No one is happy. Tell George to pick up that car and get the hell out.’

I pressed the button. ‘Right,’ I said.

‘Who are you?’ asked the voice.

‘One of the attendants.’

He said, ‘Huh,’ and was quiet.

The Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train began to slow down and soon came to a smooth stop. Almost in the same instant, George was back in his doorway.

‘Tell the despatcher we’ve stopped and are going back,’ he said, when I’d relayed the messages. ‘We’re eleven point two miles out of Cartier, between Benny and Stralak, which means in an uninhabited wilderness. You stay here, eh?’ And he was gone again, this time towards the excitement in the tail.

I gave his message to the despatcher and added, ‘We’re reversing now, going slowly.’

‘Let me know when you find the car.’

‘Yes.’

It was pitch dark through the windows; no light in the wilderness. I heard afterwards from a lot of excited chattering in the dining room that George had stood alone outside the rear door of the dome car on the brink of space, directing a bright hand-held torch beam down the track. Heard that he had a walkie-talkie radio on which he could give the engineer instructions to slow down further, and to stop.

He found the Lorrimores’ car about a mile and a half out of Cartier. The whole train stopped while he jumped down from the dome car and went to look at the laggard. There was a long pause from my point of view, while the lights began flickering in the office and the train exceedingly slowly reversed, before stopping again and going into a sudden jerk. Then we started forwards slowly, and then faster, and the lights stopped flickering, and soon after that George appeared in his office looking grim, all chuckles extinguished.

‘What’s the matter,’ I said.

‘Nothing,’
he said violently, ‘that’s what’s the matter.’ He stretched out a hand for the headset which I gave him.

He spoke into it. ‘This is George. We picked up the Lorrimores’ car at one point three miles west of Cartier. There was no failure in the linkage.’ He listened. ‘That’s what I said. Who the hell do they have working in Cartier, eh? Someone uncoupled that car at Cartier and rigged some way of pulling it out of the station into the darkness before releasing it. The brakes weren’t on. You tell Cartier to send someone right away down the track looking for a rope or some such, eh? The steam heat pipe wasn’t broken, it had been unlocked. That’s what I said. The valve was closed. It was no goddam accident, no goddam mechanical failure, someone deliberately unhitched that car. If the Lorrimore girl hadn’t found out, the Canadian would have crashed into it. No, maybe not at high speed, but at twenty-five, thirty miles an hour the Canadian can do a lot of damage. Would have made matchsticks of the private car. Might have killed the Canadian engineers, or even derailed the train. You tell them to start looking, eh?’

He took off the headset and stared at me with rage.

‘Would you,’ he said, ‘know how to uncouple one car from another?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘It takes a railwayman.’ He glared. ‘A railwayman! It’s like a mechanic letting someone drive off in a car with loose wheel nuts. It’s criminal, eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘A hundred years ago,’ he said furiously, ‘they designed a system to prevent cars that had broken loose from running backwards and crashing into things. The brakes go on automatically in a runaway.’ He glared. ‘That system had been by-passed. The Lorrimores’ brakes weren’t on. That car was deliberately released on level ground, eh? I don’t understand it. What was the point?’