'Any suggestions for alternative hotels?'
'Where do we find fifty new tyres, assorted, in France? They've cut them to ribbons, they say.'
'It was sabotage. It has to be.'
'They rode over a cattle-grid which had spikes.'
Nell was sitting at her desk talking on her telephone, one hand pressed to her free ear to block out the clamour.
'Why didn't the fools pick up their bikes and walk across?'
'Nobody told them. It was a new grid. Where is Nuits St George? Can't we get a bus to go and pick up the bikes? What bus company do we use in that part of France?'
'Why isn't our French office dealing with all this?'
I sat on Nell's client chair and waited. The hubbub subsided: the crisis was sorted. Somewhere in Burgundy, the bikers would be transported to their dinners on sturdier wheels, and new tyres would be found in the morning.
Nell put her receiver down.
'You arrange cycling tours?' I said.
'Sure. And trips up Everest. Not me personally, I do mysteries. Do you need something?'
'Instructions.'
'Oh, yes. I talked to VIA. No problems.'
VIA Rail, I had discovered, was the company that operated Canada 's passenger trains, which didn't mean that it owned the rails or the stations. Nothing was simple on the railways.
'VIA,' Nell said, 'are expecting you to turn up at Union Station tomorrow morning at ten to get fitted for a uniform. Here's who you ask for.' She passed me a slip of paper. 'They've got hand-picked service people going on this trip, and they'll show you what to do when you meet them at the station on Sunday morning. You'll board the train with them.'
'What time?' I asked.
'The train comes into the station soon after eleven. The chefs and crew board soon after. Passengers board at eleven-thirty, after the reception in the station itself. The train leaves at twelve. That's thirty-five minutes earlier than the regular daily train, the Canadian, which will be on our heels as far as Winnipeg.'
'And the horses will have boarded, I gather, out in a loading area.'
'Yes, at Mimico, about six miles away. That's where they do maintenance and cleaning and put the trains together. Everything will be loaded there. Food, wine, flowers, everything for the owners.'
'And the grooms?'
'No, not them. They're being shipped back to the station by bus after they've settled the horses in. And you might like to know we've another addition to the train, a cousin of our boss, name of Leslie Brown, who's going as horsemaster, to oversee the horses and the grooms and keep everything up that end in good order.'
'Which end?'
'Behind the engine. Apparently horses travel better there. No swaying.'
While she was talking, she was sorting postcards into piles: postcards with names and numbers on.
'Do you have a plan of the train?' I asked.
She glanced up briefly and didn't exactly say I was a thundering nuisance, but looked as if she thought it. Still, she shuffled through a pile of papers, pulled out a single sheet and pushed it across the desk towards me.
'This is what we've asked for, and what they say we'll get, but the people at Mimico sometimes change things,' she said.
I picked up the paper and found it was written in a column.
Engine
Generator/boiler Baggage car
Horse car
Grooms/sleeping
Grooms/dining/dome
(Racegoers)Sleeping
Sleeping
'Sleeping
'Dayniter
Dining
26 24 16
8 4 78 if full
(Owners) Sleeping (Green) ' Sleeping (Manor) ' Sleeping (Mount) ' Special dining
Dome car (Park) ' Private car
(Owners includes actors, Company and
VIA executives, chefs and service crew,
most in Green.)
'Do you have a plan of who sleeps where?' I asked.
For answer she shuffled through the same pile as before and gave me two sheets stapled together. I looked first, as one does, for my own name; and found it.
She had given me a room-a roomette-that was right next door to Filmer.
Chapter Five
I walked back to the hotel and at two o'clock local time telephoned to England, reckoning that seven o'clock Friday evening was perhaps a good time to catch Brigadier Catto relaxing in his Newmarket house after a busy week in London. I was lucky to catch him, he said, and he had news for me.
'Remember Horfitz's messenger who gave the briefcase to Filmer at Nottingham?' he asked.
'I sure do.'
'John Millington has identified him from your photographs. He is Ivor Horfitz's son, Jason. He's not bright, so they say. Not up to much more than running errands. Delivering briefcases would be just about his mark.'
'And he got that wrong, too, according to his father.'
'Well, there you are. It doesn't get us anywhere much, but that's who he is. John Millington has issued photos to all the ring inspectors, so that if that they see him they'll report it. If Horfitz plans on using his son as an on- course errand boy regularly, we'll make sure he knows we're watching.'
'He'd do better to find someone else.'
'A nasty thought.' He paused briefly. 'How are you doing, your end?'
'I haven't seen Filmer yet. He's staying tomorrow night at a hotel with most of the owners' group, according to the travel company's lists. Presumably he'll be at the official lunch with the Ontario Jockey Club at Woodbine tomorrow. I'll go to the races, but probably not to the lunch. I'll see that what he's doing, as best I can.' I told him about Bill Baudelaire's mother, and said, 'After we've started off on the train, if you want to get hold of me direct, leave a message with her, and I'll telephone back to you or John Millington as soon as I'm able.'
'It's a bit hit or miss,' he grumbled, repeating the number after I'd dictated it.
'She's an invalid,' I added, and laughed to myself at his reaction.
When he'd stopped spluttering, he said, 'Tor, this is impossible.'
'Well, I don't know. It's an open line of communication, after all. Better to have one than not. And Bill Baudelaire suggested it himself. He must know she's capable.'
'All right then. Better than nothing.' He didn't sound too sure, though, and who could blame him. Brigade commanders weren't accustomed to bedridden grandmothers manning field telephones. 'I'll be here at home on Sunday,' he said. 'Get through to me, will you, for last-minute gen both ways, before you board?'
'Yes, certainly.'
'You sound altogether,' he said with a touch of disapproval, 'suspiciously happy.'
'Oh! Well… this train looks like being good fun.'
