On the train there would be special sleeping cars, a special dining car, two private chefs and a load of good wine. People who owned their own private rail cars could, as in the past, apply for them to be joined to the train.
Every possible extra luxury would be available if requested in advance, and in addition, for entertainment along the way, an intriguing mystery would be enacted on board and at the stop-overs, which passengers would be invited to solve.
I winced a shade at that last piece of information: keeping eyes on Filmer would be hard enough anyhow without all sorts of imaginary mayhem going on around him. He himself was mystery enough.
Special races, I read, had been introduced into the regular programmes at Woodbine racecourse, Toronto, at Assiniboia Downs, Winnipeg, and at Exhibition Park, Vancouver. The races had been framed to be ultra-attractive to the paying public, with magnificent prize money to please the owners. The owners of the horses and indeed all the train passengers would be given VIP treatment at all the racecourses, including lunch with the presidents.
It wasn't to be expected that owners would want to run the horses on the train three times in so short a span.
Any owner was free to run a horse just once. Any owner (or any other passenger on the train) was free to bring any other of his horses to Toronto, Winnipeg or Vancouver by road or by air to run in the special races. The trip was to be a lighthearted junket for the visitors, a celebration of racing in Canada.
In smaller print after all that trumpeting came the information that accommodation was available also for one groom for each horse. If owners wanted space for extra attendants, would they please specify early. Grooms and other attendants would have their own dining and sleeping cars and their own separate entertainments.
Stabling had been reserved at Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver for the horses going by train, and they would be able to exercise normally at all three places. In addition, during the passengers' visit to the mountains, the horses would be stabled and exercised in Calgary. The good care of the horses was of prime importance, and a veterinarian would be at once helicoptered to the train if his services should become necessary between scheduled stops.
Next in the package was a pencilled note from Bill Baudelaire:
All eleven horse places were sold out within two weeks of the first major announcement.
All forty-eight VIP passenger places were sold within a month.
There are dozens of entries for the special races.
This is going to be a success!
After that came a list of the eleven horses, with past form, followed by a list of their owners, with nationalities. Three owners from England (including Filmer), one from Australia, three from the United States and five from Canada (including Filmer's partner).
The owners, with husbands, wives, families and friends, had taken up twenty-seven of the forty-eight passenger places. Four of the remaining twenty-one places had also been taken by well-known Canadian owners (identified by a star against their names), and Bill Baudelaire, in a note pencilled at the bottom of this passenger list had put, 'Splendid response from our appeal to our owners to support the project!'
There were no trainers mentioned on the passenger list, and in fact I later learned that the trainers were making their own way by air as usual to Winnipeg and Vancouver, presumably because the train trip was too time-consuming and expensive.
Next in the package came a bunch of hand-outs from the three racecourses, from the Canadian railway company and from the four hotels, all shiny pamphlets extolling their individual excellencies. Finally, a fat brochure with good colour plates put together by the travel organizers in charge of getting the show on the railroad, a job which seemed well within their powers since they apparently also arranged safaris to outer deserts, treks to the Poles and tours to anywhere anyone cared to go.
They also staged mysteries as entertainment; evenings, weekends, moving or stationary. They were experts from much practice.
For the Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train, they said, they had arranged something extra-special. 'A mystery that will grab you by the throat. A stunning experience. All around you the story will unfold. Clues will appear. BE ON YOUR GUARD.'
Oh great, I thought wryly. But they hadn't finished. There was a parting shot.
'BEWARE! MANY PEOPLE ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM.'
Chapter Four
'How can they stage a play on a train?' I asked Bill Baudelaire the next day. 'I wouldn't have thought it would work.'
'Mysteries are very popular in Canada. Very fashionable,' he said, 'and they don't exactly stage a play. Some of the passengers will be actors and they will make the story evolve. I went to a dinner party… a mystery dinner party… not long ago, and some of the guests were actors, and before we knew where we were, we were all caught up in a string of events, just as if it were real. Quite amazing. I went because my wife wanted to. I didn't think I would enjoy it in the least, but I did.'
'Some of the passengers…' I repeated slowly. 'Do you know which ones?'
'No, I don't,' he said, more cheerfully than I liked. That's part of the fun for everyone, trying to spot the actors.'
I liked it less and less.
'And of course the actors may be hiding among the other lot of passengers until their turn to appear comes.'
'What other lot of passengers?' I said blankly.
'The racegoers.' He looked at my face. 'Doesn't it say anything about them in the package?'
'No, it doesn't.'
'Ah.' He reflected briefly. 'Well, in order to make the trip economically viable, the rail company said we should add our own party to the regular train which sets off every day from Toronto to Vancouver, which is called the Canadian. We didn't want to do that because it would have meant we couldn't stop the train for two nights in Winnipeg and again for the mountains, and although the carriages could be unhitched and left in a siding, we'd be faced with security problems. But our own special train was proving extremely, almost impossibly, expensive. So we advertised a separate excursion… a racegoing trip and now we have our own train. But it has been expanded, with three or four more sleeping cars, another dining car, and a dayniter or two according to how many tickets they sell in the end. We had an enormous response from people who didn't want to pay what the owners are paying but would like to go to the races across Canada on vacation. They are buying their tickets for the train at the normal fare and making their own arrangements at the stops… and we call these passengers the racegoers, for convenience.'
I signed. I supposed it made sense. 'What's a dayniter?' I said.
'A car with reclining seats, not bedrooms.'
'And how many people altogether will be travelling?'
'Difficult to say. Start with forty-eight owners… we call them owners to distinguish them from the racegoers… and the grooms. Then the actors and the people from the travel company. Then the train crew and stewards, waiters, chefs and so on. With all the racegoers… well, perhaps about two hundred people altogether. We won't know until we start. Probably not then, unless we actually count.'
I could get lost among two hundred more easily than among forty-eight, I thought. Perhaps it might not be too bad. Yet the owners would be looking for actors… for people who weren't what they seemed.
'You asked about contact,' Bill Baudelaire said.
'Yes.'
'I've discussed it with some of our Jockey Club, and we think you'll simply have to telephone us from the stops.'
I said with some alarm, 'How many of your Jockey Club know I'm going on the train?'