Chapter 3 Some Very Important People

Bill Baudelaire came to my hotel room in the middle of the morning. I ordered coffee, and he filled me in on some further details.

I asked him why he hadn't simply blocked Filmer's place on the Race Train.

'Believe me,' he said, 'if I could have, I would have. I rang Catto to ask what I could do. Were there any grounds for banning Filmer, I asked? He said that there was no firm evidence. If he'd ever been found guilty of anything, even a parking ticket . .. But he hadn't, so anything I could have done to keep Filmer off the train would have been illegal; Filmer could have protested that he was being persecuted, and more people would have believed him. So I asked Catto whether, since we couldn't get Filmer off the train, we could get one of our men on the train. Here in Canada we don't have anyone quite like you in our Jockey Club. So here you are. I hope you're as good as Catto says you are.'

I murmured something modest.

'One thing our brochure doesn't mention, Tor,' Baudelaire went on, 'is that we allow anyone who owns his own private rail car to apply for it to be joined on to the train. This year, unusually, we had an applicant: Mercer Lorrimore.'

He sat back in his chair, looking satisfied with himself. He had spoken the name as if I should recognize it, but I must have looked blank. He raised an eyebrow. 'Don't tell me I have to explain who Mercer Lorrimore is,' he said.

'I'm afraid so,' I answered.

'He's only about the richest man in Canada,' said Baudelaire. Most of his money comes from banking. He and his family are known all over Canada; the society and gossip columns of the magazines and newspapers would be lost without them.

Whatever else anyone can say about him, though, no one can deny that Mercer loves horses and horse-racing. He has some wonderful horses.'

'And he's coming on your train,' I said.

'Yes,' said Baudelaire, 'and so is the rest of his family too - his wife Bambi, their son Sheridan, who's about twenty, and their teenage daughter Xanthe.'

'And you say they'll have a separate car,' I said.

'Yes, it'll be added on to the rear of the train.'

'One other thing,' I said, 'before I forget. How will I get in touch with you, if I need to? I don't want to ring your office at the Jockey Club, because the fewer Club members who know that I'm on the train, the better. Can I ring you at home?'

'I wouldn't advise that,' he said. 'My three daughters are never off the phone. Why don't you ring my mother? She'll pass messages on to me; I'll be sure to tell her where I'll be. She's always at home, because she's bedridden.'

'All right,' I said, 'if you say so.' He wrote the number down
on a piece of paper and gave it to me. But I wasn't particularly
happy, since I imagined that a bedridden old woman would have
a leaky memory, and be slightly deaf, and so on. *

My last visit in Ottawa, before leaving for Toronto, was to the office of the travel company who were arranging the whole trip. Since I was to be disguised as a waiter on the train, it had been necessary to let someone in their office in on the secret — without letting them know exactly what my job was. It was the travel agent who would accompany the passengers throughout the trip who had been told. Her name was Nell Richmond. I soon found her desk in the office and introduced myself. She had fair hair and grey eyes and was about my age – between twenty-five and thirty. I was immediately glad she was going to be on the train.

Our conversation was constantly interrupted by the telephone on her desk ringing. She coped with all the calls in a calm, efficient manner, her eyes occasionally meeting mine with a kind of humorous or curious look, as if to learn about me. But between phone calls I managed to find out where in Toronto I should report to pick up my waiter's uniform, and she gave me a pass to get on the train.

'I don't really know what you're doing,' she said, 'and I'm not sure I want to know. But Mr Baudelaire was most insistent that I should give you any information you want. What can I tell you?'

All about yourself, I thought, but said out loud: 'Do you have a plan of who sleeps where?'

'Certainly,' she said. She pulled it out of her file and gave it to me. 'Anything else?'

'No, I don't think so,' I said. 'Oh, you could tell me if this is complete.'

I showed her a list I'd drawn up of all the staff and owners who would be in the end carriages of the train. She checked it carefully, occasionally brushing her hair out of her eyes.

'I've nothing to add to that,' she said. 'But there is one new arrival, further up the train. Baudelaire rang a short while ago to say that he had arranged for a woman called Leslie Brown to check who comes and goes in the horse-car. Only owners and grooms are allowed in. The horses aren't in any danger, are they?'

'I wish I knew,' I said.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 789