On reflection, I thought it less and less probable that he had done any such thing: he would have to have by-passed the dragon-lady, Leslie Brown, for a start. Yet presumably at times she left her post… to eat and sleep.
'I said,' Daffodil said to me distinctly, 'would you bring me a clean knife? I've dropped mine on the floor.'
'Certainly, madam,' I said, coming back abruptly to the matter in hand and realizing with a shock that she had already asked me once, I fetched her a knife fast. She nodded merely, her attention again on Filmer, and he, I was mightily relieved to see, had taken no notice of the small matter. But how could I, I thought ruefully, how could I have possibly stopped concentrating when I was so close to him. Only one day ago the proximity had had my pulse racing.
The train had made its imperceptible departure and was rolling along again past the uninhabited infinity of rocks and lakes and conifers that seemed to march on to the end of the world. We finished serving lunch and coffee and cleared up, and as soon as I decently could I left the kitchen and set off forward up the train.
George, whom I looked for first, was in his office eating a fat ragged beef sandwich and drinking diet Coke.
'How did it go,' I asked, 'In Thunder Bay?'
He scowled, but halfheartedly. 'They found out nothing I hadn't told them. There was nothing to see. They're thinking now that whoever uncoupled the private car was on it when the train left Cartier.'
'On the private car?' I said in surprise.
'That's right. The steam tube could have been disconnected in the station, eh? Then the train leaves Cartier with the saboteur in the Lorrimores' car. Then less than a mile out of Cartier, eh?, our saboteur pulls up the rod that undoes the coupling. Then the private car rolls to a stop, and he gets off and walks back to Cartier.'
'But why should anyone do that?'
'Grow up, sonny. There are people in this world who cause trouble because it makes them feel important. They're ineffective, eh?, in their lives. So they burn things… and smash things… paint slogans on walls… leave their mark on something, eh? And wreck trains. Put slabs of concrete on the rails. I've seen it done. Power over others, that's what it's about. A grudge against the Lorrimores, most like. Power over them, over their possessions. That's what those investigators think.'
'Hm,' I said. 'If that's the case, the saboteur wouldn't have walked back to Cartier but up to some vantage point from where he could watch the smash.'
George looked startled. 'Well… I suppose he might.'
'Arsonists often help to put out the fires they've started.'
'You mean he would have waited around… to help with the wreck. Even to help with casualties?'
'Sure,' I said. 'Pure, heady power, to know you'd caused such a scene.'
'I didn't see anyone around,' he said thoughtfully, 'when we went back to the car. I shone the lamp… there wasn't anyone moving, eh?, or anything like that.'
'So, what are the investigators going to do?' I asked.
His eyes crinkled and the familiar chuckle escaped. 'Write long reports, eh? Tell us never to take private cars. Blame me for not preventing it, I dare say.'
He didn't seem worried at the idea. His shoulders and his mind were broad.
I left him with appreciation and went forward into the central dining car where all the actors were sitting in front of coffee cups and poring over typed sheets of stage directions, muttering under their breaths and sometimes exclaiming aloud.
Zak raised his eyes vaguely in my direction but it would have been tactless to disrupt the thoughts behind them, so I pressed on forwards, traversing the dayniter and the sleeping cars and arriving at the forward dome car. There were a lot of people about everywhere, but no one looked my way twice.
I knocked eventually on the door of the horse car and, after inspection and formalities that would have done an Iron Curtain country proud, was admitted again by Ms Brown to the holy of holies.
Rescrawling Tommy Titmouse on her list I was interested to see how long it had grown, and I noticed that even Mercer hadn't been let in without signing. I asked the dragon-lady if anyone had come in who wasn't an owner or a groom, and she bridled like a thin turkey and told me that she had conscientiously checked every visitor against her list of bona fide owners, and only they had been admitted.
'But you wouldn't know them all by sight,' I said.
'What do you mean?' she demanded.
'Supposing for instance someone came and said they were Mr Unwin, you would check that his name was on the list and let him in?'
'Yes, of course.'
'And suppose he wasn't Mr Unwin, although he said he was?'
'You're just being difficult,' she said crossly. 'I cannot refuse entry to the owners. They were given the right to visit, but they don't have to produce passports. Nor do their wives or husbands.'
I looked down her visitors' list. Filmer appeared on it twice, Daffodil once. Filmer's signature was large and flamboyant, demanding attention. No one had written Filmer in any other way: it seemed that gaunt-face hadn't gained entry by giving Filmer's name, at least. It didn't mean he hadn't given someone else's.
I gave Leslie Brown her list back and wandered around under her eagle eye looking at the horses. They swayed peacefully to the motion, standing diagonally across the stalls, watching me incuriously, seemingly content. I couldn't perceive that Upper Gumtree looked any more sleepy than any of the other: his eyes were as bright, and he pricked his ears when I came near him.
All of the grooms, except one who was asleep on some hay bales, had chosen not to sit in the car with their charges, and I imagined it was because of Leslie Brown's daunting presence: racing lads on the whole felt a companionable devotion to their horses, and I would have expected more of them to be sitting on the hay bales during the day.
'What happens at night on the train?' I asked Leslie Brown. 'Who guards the horses then?'
'I do,' she said tartly. 'They've given me a roomette or some such, but I take this thing seriously. I slept in here last night, and will do so again after Winnipeg, and after Lake Louise. I don't see why you're so worried about anyone slipping past me.' She frowned at me, not liking my suspicions. 'When I go to the bathroom, I leave one groom in here and lock the horses' car door behind me. I'm never away more than a few minutes. I insist on one of the grooms being in here at all times. I am very well aware of the need for security, and I assure you that the horses are well guarded.'
I regarded her thin obstinate face and knew she believed to her determined soul in what she said.
'As for the barns at Winnipeg and the stabling at Calgary,' she added righteously, 'they are someone else's responsibility. I can't answer for what happens to the horses there.' She was implying, plain enough, that no one else could be trusted to be as thorough as herself.
'Do you ever have any fun, Ms Brown?' I asked.
'What do you mean?' she said, raising surprised eyebrows. 'All this is fun.' She waved a hand in general round the horse car. 'I'm having the time of my life.' And she wasn't being ironic: she truly meant it.
'Well,' I said a little feebly, 'then that's fine.'
She gave two sharp little nods, as if that finished the matter, which no doubt it did, except that I still looked for gaps in her defences. I wandered one more time round the whole place, seeing the sunlight slant in through the barred unopenable windows (which would keep people out as well as horses in), smelling the sweet hay and the faint musty odour of the horses themselves, feeling the swirls of fresh air coming from the rows of small ventilators along the roof, hearing the creaking and rushing noises in the car's fabric and the grind of the electricity-generating wheels under the floor.