champagne in the orange juice.'
She stopped for breath and a laugh and I said, 'Nell, if Bill Baudelaire asks you if I'm here, just say yes, don't say where.'
She was puzzled but too short of time to argue. 'Well… OK.'
'Thanks.'
She nodded and turned to go and take care of the passengers, and the James Winterbourne character came out to meet her and also to talk to Zak.
'It's too much,' he complained, 'the real goddam Chairman of the Ontario Jockey Club has turned up to do the 'bon voyage' bit himself. I'm out of a job.'
'We did ask him first,' Nell said. 'We suggested it right at the beginning, before it all grew so big. He's obviously decided he should be here after all.'
'Yes, but… what about my fee?'
'You'll get it,' Zak said resignedly. 'Just go back and jolly things along and tell everyone what a great trip they're going to have.'
'I've been doing that,' he grumbled, but returned obediently to his task.
'As a matter of fact,' Nell said, her brow wrinkling, 'I suppose I did get a message days ago to say the Chairman was coming, but I didn't know it meant him. I didn't know who it meant. It was a message left for me while I was out. ‘The Colonel is coming.' I didn't know any colonels. Is the Chairman a colonel?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Oh well, no harm done. I'd better go and see if he needs anything.' She hurried off, unperturbed.
Zak sighed. 'I could have saved myself that fee.'
'How do you mean?'
'Oh, Merry amp; Co pay me a lump sum to stage the mystery. I engage the actors and pay them, and whatever is left at the end is mine. Not much, sometimes.'
Voices were suddenly raised over in the crowd and people began scattering to the edges of the area, clearing the centre and falling silent. Zak and I instinctively went nearer, he in front, I in his shadow.
On the floor, sprawling, lay the actor Raoul, with Donna and Pierre bending down to help him up. Raoul dabbed at his nose with the back of his hand, and everyone could see the resulting scarlet streak.
Mavis Bricknell began saying loudly and indignantly, 'He hit him. He hit him. That young man hit our trainer in the face. He had no right to knock him down.'
She was pointing at Sheridan Lorrimore, who had turned his back on the scene.
I glanced at Zak for enlightenment.
'That,' he said blankly, 'wasn't in the script.'
Nell smoothed it over.
Sheridan Lorrimore could be heard saying furiously and fortissimo to his father, 'How the hell could I know they were acting? The fellow was being a bore. I just bopped him one. He deserved it. The girl was crying. And he was crowding me, pushing against me. I didn't like it.'
His father murmured something.
'Apologize?' Sheridan said in a high voice. 'Apol-oh, all right. I apologize. Will that do?'
Mercer drew him away to a corner, and slowly, haltingly, the general good humour resurfaced. Ironic compliments were paid to Pierre, Donna and Raoul for the potency and effect of their acting and Raoul played for sympathy and looked nobly forgiving, holding a handkerchief to his nose and peering at it for blood, of which there seemed to be not much.
Zak cursed and said that Pierre had in fact been going to knock Raoul to the ground at a slightly later time, and now that would have to be changed. I left him to his problems because it was coming up to the time when Emil had said the crew should board the train, and I was due back in the coffee shop.
The carrot cakes had been reduced to crumbs and the coffee cups were empty. The bussed consignment of grooms had arrived and were sitting in a group wearing Race Train T-shirts above their jeans. Emil looked at his watch and another crew member arrived and said the computer in the crews' room downstairs was showing that the special train had just pulled into the station, Gate 6, Track 7, as expected.
'Bon,' Emil said, smiling. 'Then, Tommy, your duties begin.'
Everyone picked up their travelling bags and in a straggle more than a group walked back towards the passengers' assembly area. As we approached we could hear the real Chairman of the Ontario Jockey Club welcoming everyone to the adventure and we could see Zak and the other actors waiting for him to finish so that they could get on with the mystery.
Jimmy the actor was dressed in a maroon VIA Rail station uniform, Zak was intent, and Ricky, due on in gory glory at any moment, was checking in a small handmirror that 'blood' was cascading satisfactorily from a gash on his head
Zak flashed a glance at the crew, saw me and gave me a thumbs-up sign The Chairman wound up to applause. Zak tapped Ricky, who had put the mirror in his pocket, and Ricky went into the 'I've been attacked' routine most convincingly
Emil, the crew and I wasted no time watching. We went on past and came to Gate 6, which was basically a staircase leading to ground level, where the rails were. Even though it was high morning, the light was dim and artificial outside as acres of arched roof far above kept out the Canadian weather.
The great train was standing there, faintly hissing, silver, immensely heavy, stretching away in both directions for as far as one could see in the gloom In the Merry amp; Co office, I'd learned that each carriage (build of strong unpainted corrugated aluminium with the corrugations lying horizontally) was eighty-five feet long, and there were fifteen carriages in all, counting the horses, the baggage and the Lornmores. With the engines as well, this train covered more than a quarter of a mile standing still
Two furlongs, I thought frivolously, to put it suitably. Three times round the train more than equalled the Derby.
There was another long banner, duplication of the one in the station, fastened to the side of the train, telling all the passengers what they were going on, if they were still in any doubt. The crew divided to right and left according to where their jobs were and, following Emil, I found myself climbing up not into the dining car but into one of the sleeping cars.
Emil briefly consulted a notebook, stowed his travel bag on a rack in a small bedroom and directed me to put my bag in the one next door. He said I should remove my raincoat and my jacket and hang them on the hangers provided.
That done, he closed both doors and we descended again to the ground.
'It's easier to walk along outside while we are in the station,' he explained. He was ever precise. We walked along beside the wheels until the end of the train was in sight and finally walked past the dining car and at the end of it swung upwards through its rear door into the scene of operations.
The special dining car lived up to its name with a blue and red carpet, big blue padded leather chairs, polished wood gleaming in the lights and glass panels engraved with birds. There were windows all down both sides with blue patterned curtains at intervals and green plants lodged above, behind pelmets. Ten feet wide, the car was long enough to accommodate six oblong tables down each side of a wide aisle with four chairs at each- forty-eight seats, as promised. All quiet, all empty. All waiting.
'Come,' Emil said, leading the way forward through the splendour, 'I show you the kitchen.'
The long, silvery, all-metal kitchen was already occupied by two figures dressed in white trousers and jackets topped by high white paper hats: the diminutive lady chef from Montreal and a tall willowy young man who introduced himself as Angus, the special chef employed by the outside firm of top class caterers who were providing for this journey the sort of food not usually served on trains
It seemed to my amused eyes that the two chefs were in chilly unfriendliness, marking out their territories, each, in the normal course of events, being accustomed to being the boss.
Emil, who must have picked up the same signals, spoke with a true leader's decisiveness 'In this kitchen this week ' he said to me, 'Angus is to command. Simone will assist.' Angus looked relieved, Simone resentful. 'This is because,' Emil said, as if it clinched matters, which it did, 'Angus and his company have designed le menu and provided the food.'
The matter, everyone could see, was closed. Emil explained to me that on this trip the linen, cutlery and
