None at all.
The right-hand combination wheels were set at one-three-seven. I methodically went on from there, one-three-eight, one-three-nine, one-four-zero, trying the latch after each number change.
My heart hammered and I felt breathless. I was used to long-distance safety in my work, and in the past to many physical dangers, but never to this sort of risk.
One-four-one, one-four-two, one-four-three… I tried the latch over and over and looked at my watch. Only two minutes had gone. It felt like a lifetime. One-four-four, one-four-five… There were a thousand possible combinations… one-four-six, one-four-seven… in twenty minutes I could perhaps try a hundred and fifty numbers… I had done this process before, once, but not under pressure, when Aunt Viv had set a combination on a new suitcase and then forgotten it… one-four-eight, one-four-nine… my face sweating, my fingers slipping on the tiny wheels from haste… one-five-zero, one-five-one…
With a snap the latch flew open.
It was incredible. I could hardly believe it. I had barely started. All I needed now was double the luck.
The left-hand combination numbers stood at seven-three-eight. I tried the latch. Nothing.
With just a hope that both locks opened to the same sesame, I turned the wheels to one-five-one and tried it. Nothing. Not so easy. I tried reversing it to five-one-five. Nothing. I tried comparable numbers, one-two-one, two-one-two, one-three-one, three-one-three, one-four-one, four-one-four… six… seven… eight… nine… three zeros.
Zilch.
My nerve deserted me. I rolled the left-hand wheels back to seven-three-eight and with the latch closed again set the right-hand lock to one-three-seven. I polished the latches a bit with my shirtsleeve, then I put the briefcase back exactly as I'd found it and took my leaf-trembling self along to the dining car, already regretting, before I got there, that I hadn't stayed until the Canadian left, knowing that I'd wasted some of the best and perhaps the only chance I would get of seeing what Filmer had brought with him on the train.
Perhaps if I'd tried one-one-five, or five-five-one… or five-one-one, or five-five-five…
Nell was sitting alone at a table in the dining car working on her interminable lists (those usually clipped to the clipboard) and I sat down opposite her feeling ashamed of myself.
She glanced up. 'Hello,' she said.
'Hi.'
She considered me. 'You look hot. Been running?'
I'd been indulging in good heart exercise while sitting still. I didn't think I would confess.
'Sort of,' I said. 'How's things?'
She glanced sideways with disgust at the Canadian.
'I was just about to go over to the station when that arrived.'
That, as if taking the hint, began quietly to roll, and within twenty seconds, we again had a clear view of the station. Most of the train's passengers, including Filmer and Daffodil, immediately started across the tracks to reboard. Among them, aiming for the racegoers' carriages, was gaunt-face.
God in heaven, I thought. I forgot about him. I forgot about photographing him. My wits were scattered.
'What's the matter?' Nell said, watching my face.
'I've earned a D minus. A double D minus.'
'You probably expect too much of yourself,' she said dispassionately. 'No one's perfect.'
'There are degrees of imperfection.'
'How big is the catastrophe?'
I thought it over more coolly. Gaunt-face was on the train, and I might have another opportunity. I could undo one of the latches of Filmer's briefcase and, given time, I might do the other. Correction: given nerve, I might do the other.
'OK,' I said, 'let's say C minus, could do better. Still not good.' Millington would have done better.
Zak and Emil arrived together at that point, Emil ready to set the tables for lunch, Zak in theatrical exasperation demanding to know if the actors were to put on the next scene before the meal as originally planned, and if not, when?
Nell looked at her watch and briefly thought. 'Couldn't you postpone it until cocktail time this evening?'
'We're supposed to do the following scene then,' he objected.
'Well… couldn't you run them both together?'
He rather grumpily agreed and went away saying they would have to rehearse. Nell smiled sweetly at his departing back and asked if I'd ever noticed how important everything was to actors? Everything except the real world, of course.
'Pussycat,' I said.
'But I have such tiny, indulgent claws.'
Oliver and Cathy arrived and with Emil began spreading tablecloths and setting places. I got to my feet and helped them, and Nell with teasing amusement watched me fold pink napkins into water lilies and said, 'Well, well, hidden depths,' and I answered, 'You should see my dishwashing,' which were the sort of infantile surface remarks of something we both guessed might suddenly become serious. The surface meanwhile was safe and shimmering and funny, and would stay that way until we were ready for change.
As usual, the passengers came early into the dining car, and I faded into the scenery in my uniform and avoided Nell's eyes.
The passengers hadn't over-enjoyed their sojourn in the station, it appeared, as they had been fallen upon by the flock of pressmen who had taken Xanthe back again to the brink of hysteria, and had asked Mercer whether it wasn't unwise to flaunt the privilege of wealth in his private car, and hadn't he invited trouble by adding it to the train. Indignation on his behalf was thick in the air. Everyone knew he was public spiritedly on the trip For the Sake of Canadian Racing.
The Lorrimores, all four of them, arrived together to murmurs of sympathy, but the two young ones split off immediately from their parents and from each other, all of them gravitating to their various havens: the parents went to join Filmer and Daffodil of their own free will, Xanthe made a straight piteous line to Mrs Young, and Sheridan grabbed hold of Nell, who was by this time standing, saying that he needed her to sit with him, she was the only decent human being on the whole damn train.
Nell, unsure of the worth of his compliment, nevertheless sat down opposite him, even if temporarily. Keeping Sheridan on a straight or even a wavy line definitely came into the category of crisis control.
Sheridan had the looks which went with Julius's name, Apollo: he was tall, handsome, nearly blond, a child of the sun. The ice, the arrogance, the lack of common sense and of control, these were the darkside tragedy. A mini psychopath, I thought, and maybe not so mini, at that, if Xanthe thought he should be in jail.
The Australian Unwins, sitting with the rival owners of Flokati, were concerned about a lifelessness they had detected in Upper Gumtree due to the fact that on the train their horse had been fed a restricted diet of compressed food nuts and high-grade hay and the Flokati people were cheerfully saying that on so long a stretch without exercise, good hay was best. Hay was calming. 'We don't want them climbing the walls,' Mr Flokati said. Upper Gumtree had looked asleep, Mrs Unwin remarked with disapproval. The Flokati people beamed wide trying to look sympathetic. If Upper Gumtree proved listless, so much the better for Flokati's chances.
It seemed that all of the owners had taken the opportunity of visiting the horses while the train was standing still, and listen though I might I could hear no one else reporting trouble.
Upper Gumtree, it seemed to me, might revive spectacularly on the morrow, given oats, fresh air and exercise. His race was still more than forty-eight hours away. If gaunt-face had in fact given Upper Gumtree something tranquillizing, the effects would wear off long before then.