Chapter 5 Meeting the Horses and the Conductor

After the party, the train set off and I had no more time for spying. There was washing up to do, then laying the tables and serving a meal — then more washing up! It seemed that a waiter's job was never over. I felt that I had to tell Emil that I was not a regular waiter, and that there may be times when I would neglect my job as a waiter. He gave me a strange look, but admitted that he had had his suspicions, ever since the rail company had insisted on him taking an inexperienced person on as a waiter:

As soon as my work was finished, I decided I should check up on the horses. I walked unsteadily up the train, past all the racegoers in their carriages, and was stopped by the locked door of the horse-car.

I knocked on the door. A slight woman, aged about forty and dressed for business in jeans, boots and a white short- sleeved shirt, put her head around the door, took one look at my waiter's uniform, and told me that I was not allowed in the horse-car. Before I could protest or say anything else, she had shut the door and locked it again.

I realized I needed some higher authority. Of course, the conductor* — I should introduce myself to him anyway. I made my way back down the train as far as his office and found him in. I told him a little about myself, and showed him a letter from Bill Baudelaire which said that I was working for him.

'All right,' said the conductor, whose name was George Burley. 'What can I do for you?'

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* A conductor is an officer of the railway who is in charge of the train during its journey.

'Several things,' I said. 'But first I want to inspect the horse-car.'

George understood at once, and laughed. 'So you've met the fierce Ms Leslie Brown,' he said. 'She would like to rule the whole train, I think. OK, I'll see what I can do. Let's go.'

I liked his dry sense of humour. Back at the horse-car, George told Ms Brown firmly that I could go wherever I wanted on the train, and that he would be responsible for my actions. She looked at me disapprovingly, but let me in with George. It was only when I stroked the horses' noses and gave them some sugar lumps from my pocket that she began to warm to me at all.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the horse-car. The space was nearly all filled by the horses' boxes, and the food containers and huge water tank, which supplied all the horses. Laurentide Ice was the only grey, I noticed. I looked around until I was satisfied that I knew the arrangements; then George and I returned to his office, which also doubled as his bedroom and the train's radio room.

'Now what?' he asked.

'There's only one thing I need to know at the moment,' I said. 'Does the train have a telephone?'

'Sure,' he said. 'It's right here.' He opened a drawer and produced the phone. 'But, as you can see,' he went on, 'it's a radio phone.' 'So . . . ?'I asked.

'So it only works near cities, where they have the equipment for receiving and sending signals. Moreover, it's very expensive to make a call on it, so the passengers generally prefer to wait until we stop at a station, and then use the pay phones there.'

'But it would be more private for me to use your phone here in your office,' I pointed out. 'Would that be OK with you?'

'Sure,' he said. 'Anything for a bit of excitement.'

By the time I got back to the bar, it was quite late. All the passengers had gone to bed, except for Xanthe Lorrimore and Mrs Young. Xanthe was sitting at one table, staring sulkily at nothing — unless it was her own reflection in the window. Mrs Young was reading a book at another table.

'Bring me a Coke,'* Xanthe ordered, as soon as she saw me,

'Certainly, miss.'

When I brought it, I explained that she would have to pay cash for it, since drinks from the bar were not included in the price of the train fare.

'But that's silly,' she said, annoyed. 'Anyway, I haven't got any money on me.'

'Oh, do let me pay, dear,' said Mrs Young, who had overheard our conversation. 'And why don't you come and sit with me?' she asked Xanthe.

Xanthe may have been sulking, but she was also clearly lonely. She moved to Mrs Young's table; I stood near by while Mrs Young looked for her purse in her handbag.

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* Coca-Cola.

'You've been deep in thought, dear,' said Mrs Young kindly to Xanthe. 'Can I help?'

It was as if her question unlocked something. 'I doubt you can help,' Xanthe said. 'It's just that I don't want to be on this train really — I've got better things to do. Nor does Sheridan, for that matter. But Daddy insisted on both of us coming, so that he can keep an eye on us, he says, and be sure what we're doing at any moment of the day. And it's all Sheridan's fault — if he were anyone else's child, he'd be in prison.'

The words had spilled out as if by themselves, and even Xanthe looked surprised. 'I ... I don't mean exactly that,' she stammered.

But that was exactly what she had meant.

Chapter 6 Sabotage

Mrs Young paid me and said I needn't stay up. I left, thinking about how unhappy Xanthe was. She looked like a confused, miserable teenager.

Next afternoon, when the train stopped at Sudbury, I seized the opportunity to use George's radio phone. I rang the number Bill Baudelaire had given me. The woman's voice at the other end sounded very light and young.

'Could I speak to Mrs Baudelaire, please?' I said.

'Speaking.'

'I mean ... the older Mrs Baudelaire.'

'Any Mrs Baudelaire who is older than me is in her grave,' she said. 'Who are you?'

'Tor Kelsey.'

'Oh yes,' she replied instantly. 'The invisible man. Do you have any messages for Bill? I'll write them down.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Thank you. Could you ask him for any information about a Mr and Mrs Young, who own a horse called Sparrowgrass? And ask him if Sheridan Lorrimore has ever been in the kind of trouble that could have landed him in prison.'

'My dear,' she said drily, 'the Lorrimores don't go to prison.'

'So I understand,' I said. 'Oh, and one more thing. Ask Bill which of the horses on the train are running at Winnipeg and Vancouver, and which ones have the best chance of winning either race.'

'I don't need to ask Bill that,' said Mrs Baudelaire confidently. 'All the horses are running at Vancouver, which is the main event; Sparrowgrass or the Lorrimores' Voting Right will win. Laurentide Ice will start strongly, but slow down later in the race. As for the Winnipeg race, no one eke stands much of a chance, because Mercer Lorrimore is transporting his great horse Premiere in by road.'

I was impressed. She explained that she and her husband — who was now dead — had owned Canada's top racing newspaper for years, so she knew what she was talking about.

'Mrs Baudelaire,' I said, 'you are priceless.'

'I agree,' she said with a laugh. Anything else?'

'No. I'll ring you again from Winnipeg tomorrow evening. And ... er ... I hope you're well.'

'No, I'm not,' she said, 'but thank you for asking. Goodbye, young man. I'm always here.'

She put down the phone quickly as if to stop me from asking further questions about her illness. And I had completely changed my mind about bedridden old women.

About an hour after we'd left Sudbury, we stopped for about five minutes at a place called Carrier and then went on again. The passengers had eaten dinner and were drinking coffee or drifting away to the bar. Xanthe Lorrimore got up from her table after a while and left - only to come back screaming and obviously badly scared.

'What is it?' asked her parents in alarm. Even Sheridan looked
interested.

'I was nearly killed,'she cried.

'What do you mean?'

'Our private car,' she said. 'It's gone! I opened the connecting door and nearly stepped off into space! And that other train, the Canadian, is right behind us, isn't it? It'll crash into our car . . . and .. . and we could have been in it! Don't you see?'

The Lorrimores and nearly everyone else ran off to look; Mrs
Young stayed with Xanthe. Once I had checked on the truth of
what Xanthe had said, I went to find George. 5

'Quick!' I said. 'Your radio. The Lorrimores' car has been unhitched and the Canadian is coming!'

He left me on the radio, while he ran up the train to tell the driver to stop. Soon, I felt the train slowing down and stopping. In the meantime, I had contacted a town up ahead called Schreiber, and the radioman there had signalled the Canadian to stop; he had got through to the train before it passed through Carrier. We began to reverse slowly back down the track.

The Lorrimores' car was found not far outside Carrier. George went to make his inspection and to attend to the rejoining of the carriage. He returned an hour later with anger on his face.

'What's the matter?' I asked.

'Nothing,' he said violently. 'That's what the matter is. There was nothing wrong with the Lorrimores' car at all.'

'What do you mean?'

'That was no accident,' he said. 'The car was unhitched on purpose. The steam heat pipe wasn't broken: it had been unlocked. Now, it is not easy to unhitch a carriage: it takes a few minutes, even for someone who knows what to do. So it must have been done at Carrier, when we were stopped. And then whoever did it must have found a way to disguise the fact that the carriage was actually unhitched: he must have joined it to the rest of the train with a piece of rope or something. He knew that the rope would break after a while and then the Lorrimores' car would have been left standing on the track. He knew that the Canadian was coming up behind us. Canada is so large that the only economical thing to do is have a single railway track across most of it, except at stations; there would have been no chance of the Canadian changing to another track.'

'What would have happened?' I asked.

'It's difficult to say exactly,' George replied. 'The Canadian would certainly have destroyed the Lorrimores' car. If anyone had been in it, they would have been killed. The Canadian itselfmight have been knocked off the rails, which would have caused a great deal of expensive damage, certainly some injuries to the passengers, and possibly some deaths. But do you know what the worst thing about all this is?'

'What?'

'Well, I'll put it this way. Would you know how to unhitch a railway carriage?'

'No, of course not.'

'Exactly,' said George. 'It was an expert job. It was sabotage -and it could only have been done by a railwayman. That makes me feel ... I don't know . . . betrayed. I love the railway: I can't understand any railwayman wanting to damage any part of it.'

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 661