list had put, 'Splendid response from our appeal to our owners to support the project!'
There were no trainers mentioned on the passenger list, and in fact I later learned that the trainers were making their own way by air as usual to Winnipeg and Vancouver, presumably because the train trip was too time-consuming and expensive.
Next in the package came a bunch of hand-outs from the three racecourses, from the Canadian railway company and from the four hotels, all shiny pamphlets extolling their individual excellencies. Finally, a fat brochure with good colour plates put together by the travel organizers in charge of getting the show on the railroad, a job which seemed well within their powers since they apparently also arranged safaris to outer deserts, treks to the Poles and tours to anywhere anyone cared to go.
They also staged mysteries as entertainment; evenings, weekends, moving or stationary. They were experts from much practice.
For the Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train, they said, they had arranged something extra-special. 'A mystery that will grab you by the throat. A stunning experience. All around you the story will unfold. Clues will appear. BE ON YOUR GUARD.'
Oh great, I thought wryly. But they hadn't finished. There was a parting shot.
'BEWARE! MANY PEOPLE ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM.'
Chapter Four
'How can they stage a play on a train?' I asked Bill Baudelaire the next day. 'I wouldn't have thought it would work.'
'Mysteries are very popular in Canada. Very fashionable,' he said, 'and they don't exactly stage a play. Some of the passengers will be actors and they will make the story evolve. I went to a dinner party… a mystery dinner party… not long ago, and some of the guests were actors, and before we knew where we were, we were all caught up in a string of events, just as if it were real. Quite amazing. I went because my wife wanted to. I didn't think I would enjoy it in the least, but I did.'
'Some of the passengers…' I repeated slowly. 'Do you know which ones?'
'No, I don't,' he said, more cheerfully than I liked. That's part of the fun for everyone, trying to spot the actors.'
I liked it less and less.
'And of course the actors may be hiding among the other lot of passengers until their turn to appear comes.'
'What other lot of passengers?' I said blankly.
'The racegoers.' He looked at my face. 'Doesn't it say anything about them in the package?'
'No, it doesn't.'
'Ah.' He reflected briefly. 'Well, in order to make the trip economically viable, the rail company said we should add our own party to the regular train which sets off every day from Toronto to Vancouver, which is called the Canadian. We didn't want to do that because it would have meant we couldn't stop the train for two nights in Winnipeg and again for the mountains, and although the carriages could be unhitched and left in a siding, we'd be faced with security problems. But our own special train was proving extremely, almost impossibly, expensive. So we advertised a separate excursion… a racegoing trip and now we have our own train. But it has been expanded, with three or four more sleeping cars, another dining car, and a dayniter or two according to how many tickets they sell in the end. We had an enormous response from people who didn't want to pay what the owners are paying but would like to go to the races across Canada on vacation. They are buying their tickets for the train at the normal fare and making their own arrangements at the stops… and we call these passengers the racegoers, for convenience.'
I signed. I supposed it made sense. 'What's a dayniter?' I said.
'A car with reclining seats, not bedrooms.'
'And how many people altogether will be travelling?'
'Difficult to say. Start with forty-eight owners… we call them owners to distinguish them from the racegoers… and the grooms. Then the actors and the people from the travel company. Then the train crew and stewards, waiters, chefs and so on. With all the racegoers… well, perhaps about two hundred people altogether. We won't know until we start. Probably not then, unless we actually count.'
I could get lost among two hundred more easily than among forty-eight, I thought. Perhaps it might not be too bad. Yet the owners would be looking for actors… for people who weren't what they seemed.
'You asked about contact,' Bill Baudelaire said.
'Yes.'
'I've discussed it with some of our Jockey Club, and we think you'll simply have to telephone us from the stops.'
I said with some alarm, 'How many of your Jockey Club know I'm going on the train?'
He looked surprised. 'I suppose everyone in the executive office knows we'll have a man in place. They don't know exactly who. Not by name. Not yet. Not until I'd met you and approved. They don't and won't know what you look like.'
'Would you please not tell them my name,' I said.
He was half bewildered, half affronted. 'But our Jockey Club are sensible men. Discreet.'
'Information leaks,' I said.
He looked at me broodingly, vodka and ice cubes tinkling in a fresh glass. 'Are you serious?' he said.
'Yes, indeed.'
His brow wrinkled. 'I'm afraid I may have mentioned your name to one or two. But I will impress on them not to repeat it.'
It was too late, I supposed, for much else. Perhaps I was getting too obsessed with secrecy. Still…
'I'd rather not telephone direct to the Jockey Club,' I said.
'Couldn't I leave messages where only you will get them? Like your own home?'
His face melted into an almost boyish grin. 'I have three teenage daughters and a busy wife. The receiver is almost never in the cradle.' He thought briefly, then wrote a number on a sheet of a small notepad and gave it to me.
'Use this one,' he said. 'It's my mother's number. She's always there. She's not well and spends a good deal of time in bed. But her brains are intact. She's quick-witted. And because she's ill, if she calls me at the office she gets put straight through to me or else she gets told where to find me. If you give her a message, it will reach me personally with minimum delay. Will that do?'
'Yes, fine,' I said, and kept my doubts hidden. Carrier pigeons, I thought, might be better.
'Anything else?' he asked.
'Yes… do you think you could ask Laurentide Ice's owner why he sold a half-share to Filmer?'
'It's a she. I'll enquire.' He seemed to have hesitations in his mind but he didn't explain them. 'Is that all?' he said.
'My ticket?'
'Oh yes. The travel company, Merry amp; Co, they'll have it. They're still sorting out who's to sleep where, since we've added you in. We'll have to tell them your name, of course, but all we've said so far is that we absolutely have to have another ticket and even if it looked impossible it would have to be done. They'll bring your ticket to Union Station in Toronto on Sunday morning and you can pick it up there. All the owners are picking theirs up then.'
'All right.'
He stood up to go. 'Well… bon voyage,' he said, and after a short pause added, 'Perhaps he won't try anything.'
'Hope not.'
He nodded, shook my hand, finished the last of his vodka at a gulp and left me alone with my thoughts.
The first of those was that if I were going across a whole continent by train I might as well start out as I
