Canada, I'd learned, was single track for most of the way. Only in towns and at a few other places could trains going in opposite directions pass.
I put the mink coat on a chair and retraced my journey, locking the door again and eventually returning the key to Mercer who nodded without speech and put it in his pocket.
Emil was pouring wine. The passengers were scoffing the blinis. I eased into the general picture again and became as unidentifiable as possible. Few people, I discovered, looked directly at a waiter's eyes, even when they were talking to him.
About an hour after we'd left Sudbury we stopped briefly for under five minutes at a place called Cartier and then went on again. The passengers, replete with the lamb and chocolate mousse, lingered over coffee, and began to drift away to the dome car's bar lounge. Xanthe Lorrimore got up from the table after a while and went that way, and presently came back screaming.
This time, the real thing. She came stumbling back into the dining car followed by a commotion of people yelling behind her.
She reached her parents who were bewildered as well as worried.
'I was nearly killed,' she said frantically. 'I nearly stepped off into space. I mean, I was nearly killed.'
'Darling,' Mercer said calmingly, 'what has exactly happened?'
'You don't understand.' She was screaming, trembling, hysterical. 'I nearly stepped into space because our private car isn't there.'
It brought both of the Lorrimores to their feet in an incredulous rush, but they had only to look at the faces crowding behind her to know it was true.
'And they say, all those people say.' she was gasping, half unable to get the words out, terribly frightened '. they say the other train, the regular Canadian, is only half an hour behind us, and will smash into… will smash into… don't you see?'
The Lorrimores, followed by everyone still in the dining room, went dashing off into the dome car, but Emil and I looked at each other, and I said, 'How do we warn that train?'
'Tell the Conductor. He has a radio.'
'I'll go,' I said. 'I know where his office is. I'll find him.'
'Hurry then.'
'Yes.'
I hurried. Ran. Reached George's office.
No one there.
I went on, running where I could, and found him walking back towards me through the dayniter. He instantly took in that I brought bad news and steered me at once into the noisy outside coupling space between the dayniter and the central dining car.
'What is it?' he shouted.
'The Lorrimores' private car is unhitched… it's somewhere back on the track, and the Canadian is coming.'
He moved faster than I would have thought anyone could on a train and was already talking into a radio headset when I reached his office.
'The private car was there at Carrier,' he said. 'I was off the train there and saw it. Are you sure it's not in sight?' He listened. 'Right, then radio to the Canadian and warn the Conductor he'll not be leaving Cartier, eh? I'll get this train stopped and we'll go back for the lost car. See what's what. You'd better inform Toronto and Montreal. They won't think this is very funny on a Sunday evening, eh?' He chuckled and looked at me assessingly as I stood in his doorway. 'I'll leave someone here manning the radio,' he continued. 'Tell him when you've got the Canadian understanding the situation, eh?'
He nodded at the reply he heard, took off the headset and gave it to me.
'You are talking to the despatcher in Schreiber,' he said, 'that's ahead of us, this side of Thunder Bay -and he can radio straight to the Canadian following us. You can hear the despatcher without doing anything. To transmit, press the button.' He pointed, and was gone.
I put on the headset and sat in his chair and presently into my ears a disembodied voice said, 'Are you there?'
I pressed the button, 'Yes.'
'Tell George I got the Canadian and it will stop in Cartier. There's a CP freight train due behind it but I got Sudbury in time and it isn't leaving there. No one is happy. Tell George to pick up that car and get the hell out.'
I pressed the button. 'Right,' I said.
'Who are you?' asked the voice.
'One of the attendants.'
She said, 'Huh,' and was quiet.
The Great Transcontinental Mystery Race Train began to slow down and soon came to a smooth stop. Almost in the same instant, George was back in his doorway.
'Tell the despatcher we've stopped and are going back,' he said, when I'd relayed the messages. 'We're eleven point two miles out of Cartier, between Benny and Stralak, which means in an uninhabited wilderness. You stay here, eh?' And he was gone again, this time towards the excitement in the tail.
I gave his message to the despatcher and added, 'We're reversing now, going slowly.'
'Let me know when you find the car.'
'Yes.'
It was pitch dark through the windows; no light in the wilderness. I heard afterwards from a lot of excited chattering in the dining room that George had stood alone outside the rear door of the dome car on the brink of space, directing a bright hand-held torch beam down the track. Heard that he had a walkie-talkie radio on which he could give the engineer instructions to slow down further, and to stop.
He found the Lorrimores' car about a mile and a half out of Cartier. The whole train stopped while he jumped down from the dome car and went to look at the laggard. There was a long pause from my point of view, while the lights began nickering in the office and the train exceedingly slowly reversed, before stopping again and going into a sudden jerk. Then we started forwards slowly, and thenfaster, and the lights stopped flickering, and soon after that George appeared in his office looking grim, all chuckles extinguished.
'What's the matter,' I said.
'Nothing,' he said violently, 'that's what's the matter.' He stretched out a hand for the headset which I gave him.
He spoke into it. 'This is George. We picked up the Lorrimores' car at one point three miles west of Cartier. There was no failure in the linkage.' He listened. 'That's what I said. Who the hell do they have working in Cartier, eh? Someone uncoupled that car at Cartier and rigged some way of pulling it out of the station into the darkness before releasing it. The brakes weren't on. You tell Cartier to send someone right away down the track looking for a rope or some such, eh? The steam heat pipe wasn't broken, it had been unlocked. That's what I said. The valve was closed. It was no goddam accident, no goddam mechanical failure, someone deliberately unhitched that car. If the Lorrimore girl hadn't found out, the Canadian would have crashed into it. No, maybe not at high speed, but at twenty-five, thirty miles an hour the Canadian can do a lot of damage. Would have made matchsticks of the private car. Might have killed the Canadian engineers, or even derailed the train. You tell them to start looking, eh?'
He took off the headset and stared at me with rage.
'Would you,' he said, 'know how to uncouple one car from another?'
'No, of course not.'
'It takes a railwayman.' He glared. 'A railwayman! It's like a mechanic letting someone drive off in a car with loose wheel nuts. It's criminal, eh?'
'Yes.'
'A hundred years ago,' he said furiously, 'they designed a system to prevent cars that had broken loose from running backwards and crashing into things. The brakes go on automatically in a runaway.' He glared. 'That system had been by-passed. The Lorrimores' brakes weren't on. That car was deliberately released on level ground, eh? I don't understand it. What was the point?'
'Maybe someone doesn't like the Lorrimores,' I suggested.
'We'll find the bastard,' he said, not listening. ‘There can't be many in Cartier who know trains.'