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Chapter 2 Learning about the Race Train

 

I started on this line of work a few years ago. I had been travelling the world for several years, working anywhere I could and at any job, although the jobs were often connected with horses. I had been brought up by a horse-mad aunt after my parents had died when I was still a child.

I came back to England when I was twenty-five and had a meeting with Clement Cornborough, a lawyer who was an old friend of the family. He took me to lunch and we just made small talk, as far as I could tell.

Two days later, however, he rang me up and invited me to dinner, this time at his club. It turned out that a third person had also been invited to dinner - his old friend and fellow club-member, Brigadier Valentine Catto. Catto was very much the soldier, but by no means given to hasty action: that evening, for the first time (but by no means the last), I heard Catto's famous and typical saying, 'Thought before action'.

Catto wasn't obvious, but he was definitely asking me questions about my life. By the time dinner was half over, it was clear to me that I was being interviewed for something, though I didn't know what. I only learned much later that Catto had once happened to mention to Cornborough that what the Jockey Club really needed was an invisible man — someone who knew the horse-racing world well, but who wasn't known in return, an eyes and ears man, a fly on the wall of horse-racing who no one would notice. A person like this, they thought, was unlikely to be found.

And then two weeks later, I flew in from Mexico and met Cornborough. During lunch, the idea came to him that perhaps I was the man Catto was looking for.

By the end of that evening at the club, I had a job.

I flew to Ottawa the day after my meeting with Catto and went straight from the airport to Baudelaire's office, which overlooked the city and was full of antique wooden furniture. He was about forty years old, with red hair and blue eyes. We took to each other straight away. After chatting for a while, to get to know each other, I asked him what he could tell me about the owner of the horse which Filmer now partly owned.

'It's a woman,' he replied, 'with the extraordinary name of-Daffodil Quentin. Her husband was a respected member of the Canadian racing world, and when he died a year ago, he left her all his horses — and everything else as well. Since then, no fewer than three of the horses have suddenly died, and Mrs Quentin has been paid all the insurance.'

'You mean . . . ?' I said.

'We're not certain of anything,' Baudelaire replied to my unspoken question. 'But it does rather look like insurance fraud. We've no proof, however. And now she and Filmer are partners!'

'An unholy pair,'I remarked.

'Exactly.'

'What's the name of the horse?'

'Laurentide Ice,' Baudelaire said. 'It's named after a famous Canadian glacier. God, I wish I knew what those two were planning!'

'Leave it to me,' I said, but I didn't feel as confident as I tried to sound.



Baudelaire and I arranged to meet the next day, after I'd had time to digest what he'd told me, and to read the brochure he'd given me, all about the Transcontinental Race Train. I went through the brochure during breakfast in my hotel.

The train, I learned, was basically divided into three parts. The front four carriages would hold the luggage, the horses and the grooms; the next five provided accommodation for the race­goers. It was the final five carriages which concerned me most.

First, there were the sleeping compartments for the staff -waiters (including me), cooks, travel agent and other officials of the railway. Then, the next two carriages consisted of the extremely luxurious sleeping-compartments for the owners. Lastly, there was the first-class dining-car and a carriage with a bar for the owners to sit in when they were not eating meals. The overall impression was one of great style and luxury: no expense had been spared. And one would undoubtedly have to be very wealthy to buy a ticket for the Transcontinental Race Train.

The train would travel west, from Toronto to Vancouver. Apart from short stops for the engine to take on fuel, and for more food and water to be taken on board, there was to be an overnight stop in Winnipeg, in a top-class hotel, with a special horse-race laid on, and generous prize money for the winner. Another special attraction would be staying in a hotel in the mountains: the hotel brochure promised amazing views of natural beauty, including a glacier. Then the train would descend to Vancouver, on the west coast, where the trip would end with another horse-race. It sounded like one long party — and it sounded as though being a waiter was going to be hard work.

The Transcontinental Race Train had been running once a year for several years by now, and the races attracted huge crowds. People flooded into Winnipeg and Vancouver from all over Canada — not to say from all over the world — and the regular transcontinental train, called the Canadian, followed the Race Train all the way across Canada, bringing extra racegoers who couldn't afford the cost of a place on the Race Train itself.

 


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 794


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