Edge prl6 3000.doc

Introduction

You have to understand that a prize-winning horse is worth millions . . .

There is enough money in the world of horse-racing to make it very attractive to criminals. And one of the worst of these is Julius Filmer, a known murderer. Filmer has promised to take revenge on the horse-racing world after a recent attempt to catch him. How will he do it?

The great horse-racing season in Canada is about to begin. Owners from all over the world will travel across the country, from Toronto to Vancouver, on a special train - and Filmer will be on it. Filmer, and friends.

There is only one way to stop him. Someone eke must join the train to watch Filmer — and be ready to act. . .

Dick Francis is one of the most successful thriller writers in the world. He was born in 1920 in South Wales. He can't remember learning to ride: for him it was as easy as learning to walk. He served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, becoming a professional rider in 1948. For ten years he was one of Britain's top jockeys. When he left the sport in 1957, he became a racing journalist. He wrote his first book, the story of his life, in the same year. Then he began to write crime stories — always set in the world of horses and horse-racing. The first of these, Dead Cert (1962), was a success and he has written over thirty books since then — about one a year. All of them have been best-sellers. He has won prizes both in America and Britain for his books.

Chapter 1    Invitation to a Train Ride

I was following Derry Welfram at a race meeting when he dropped to the ground and lay face down in the mud in the light rain. Several people walked straight past him, thinking that he was drunk. I knew that he wasn't drunk, because I'd been following him all afternoon — and, in fact, for some days. However, I didn't go up to see what was wrong or to try to help him: I didn't want anyone to see me with Welfram.

It was soon clear that this was not just an unconscious drunk. A doctor came out of the race track building, turned Welfram over, did some tests and started to hit him hard on the chest. He carried on at this for a while, but eventually gave up. An ambulance arrived and took Welfram's body away.

I headed for the bar: that was where the gossip would be. I moved around the room, listening, and it wasn't long before I overheard a woman ask her husband whether he'd heard about that man who died of a heart attack earlier.

It was a pity, I thought, that Welfram had died — not because anyone would miss him, but because it put me and my boss, Brigadier Valentine Catto, back to where we started. The investigation had got nowhere so far.

My name is Tor Kelsey. I work for the Jockey Club* as a kind of policeman — or some would say as a spy. The horse-racing world is attractive to criminals, and our job is to catch them and warn them off, if possible, or get them banned from any further involvement in horse-racing. On extreme occasions, we bring in the official police force.

One of the worst criminals to inhabit the horse-racing world was Julius Apollo Filmer. Tall and elegant, he mixed with the highest levels of society, because they were the ones with the money and the horses. Nobody knew exactly how he did it, but he managed to persuade people to sell him their best horses cheaply. You have to understand that a prizewinning horse is worth millions. So why would people sell? The paperwork was all nice and legal, but something rotten was in the air. We were certain that Filmer used blackmail and threats, but we needed hard evidence.

A few months ago, we almost had the evidence. A young groom foolishly boasted in a pub that what he knew could spell big trouble for Mr Julius Filmer. Two days later, the groom turned up dead in a ditch. The police found four witnesses to pin the planning of the crime on Filmer, but on the day of the trial they either left the country or changed their stories, with the result that Filmer got off. Once again, Filmer's threats and blackmail had proved successful, and justice had failed to be done.

However, one of the frightened witnesses hinted to Catto (who could be rather persuasive himself) that it was Welfram who had threatened him, until he changed     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* A jockey rides horses in races. The Jockey Club looks after the interests of horse-racing.his story. So Catto gave me the job of finding out all I could about Welfram, with a
view to proving that he was Filmer's man. But now Welfram was dead.

A few days later, Catto asked to see me and we met at his club. We discussed Welfram's death for a while, but he soon came to the point.

'Have you ever heard of the Transcontinental Race Train?' he asked.

'Yes,' I said. I'd spent some months in Canada. 'Owners from all over the world take their horses to Canada and travel right across the country, in considerable luxury, stopping here and there to enter their horses in races. It's a famous event in Canada. But why do you ask?'

'Filmer's going on it this year,' Catto replied. 'In fact, it looks as though he's made special arrangements in order to go on it: he recently bought a half share in a horse that was already entered for the train. It seems that he is up to something. He's still angry about the trial: he has threatened to hit back at the world's racing authorities — for persecuting him, he says.'  

'If anyone ever deserved persecution, he does,' I said. 'But what on earth could he do on the train?'       

'That's for you to discover,' Catto said. 'I've contacted the head of the Canadian Jockey Club — an old friend of mine called Bill Baudelaire - and he's arranged for a place for you on the train.'

'I hope you remembered to buy me a horse as well,' I joked, 'otherwise they'll soon find out that I'm not an owner and get suspicious.'

Catto laughed. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'In fact, other people go on the train as well, not just owners. People go just to attend the races and have a good holiday. Of course, these racegoers don't travel as luxuriously as the owners . . .'             

'Oh, great!' I said sarcastically. 'Thanks for a ten-day,
uncomfortable journey!'             

'No, no!' exclaimed Catto. 'You're not going as a racegoer. They travel in a different part of the train from the owners, so you wouldn't be able to keep an eye on Filmer.'

'Well, what am I going as, then?' I asked.

'As a waiter,' Catto said. He smiled at my surprise, and added, 'These rich people hardly notice waiters: you'll be well placed to listen and spy.' Then he brought the conversation to an end. You're due to meet Baudelaire in Ottawa — he'll tell you more. Oh, and Tor — take care: Filmer's a murderer.'

Chapter 2    Learning about the Race Train

I started on this line of work a few years ago. I had been travelling the world for several years, working anywhere I could and at any job, although the jobs were often connected with horses. I had been brought up by a horse-mad aunt after my parents had died when I was still a child.

I came back to England when I was twenty-five and had a meeting with Clement Cornborough, a lawyer who was an old friend of the family. He took me to lunch and we just made small talk, as far as I could tell.

Two days later, however, he rang me up and invited me to dinner, this time at his club. It turned out that a third person had also been invited to dinner - his old friend and fellow club-member, Brigadier Valentine Catto. Catto was very much the soldier, but by no means given to hasty action: that evening, for the first time (but by no means the last), I heard Catto's famous and typical saying, 'Thought before action'.

Catto wasn't obvious, but he was definitely asking me questions about my life. By the time dinner was half over, it was clear to me that I was being interviewed for something, though I didn't know what. I only learned much later that Catto had once happened to mention to Cornborough that what the Jockey Club really needed was an invisible man — someone who knew the horse-racing world well, but who wasn't known in return, an eyes and ears man, a fly on the wall of horse-racing who no one would notice. A person like this, they thought, was unlikely to be found.

And then two weeks later, I flew in from Mexico and met Cornborough. During lunch, the idea came to him that perhaps I was the man Catto was looking for.

By the end of that evening at the club, I had a job.

♦

I flew to Ottawa the day after my meeting with Catto and went straight from the airport to Baudelaire's office, which overlooked the city and was full of antique wooden furniture. He was about forty years old, with red hair and blue eyes. We took to each other straight away. After chatting for a while, to get to know each other, I asked him what he could tell me about the owner of the horse which Filmer now partly owned.

'It's a woman,' he replied, 'with the extraordinary name of-Daffodil Quentin. Her husband was a respected member of the Canadian racing world, and when he died a year ago, he left her all his horses — and everything else as well. Since then, no fewer than three of the horses have suddenly died, and Mrs Quentin has been paid all the insurance.'

'You mean . . . ?' I said.             

'We're not certain of anything,' Baudelaire replied to my unspoken question. 'But it does rather look like insurance fraud. We've no proof, however. And now she and Filmer are partners!'

'An unholy pair,'I remarked.             

'Exactly.'             

'What's the name of the horse?'

'Laurentide Ice,' Baudelaire said. 'It's named after a famous Canadian glacier. God, I wish I knew what those two were planning!'

'Leave it to me,' I said, but I didn't feel as confident as I tried to sound.

Baudelaire and I arranged to meet the next day, after I'd had time to digest what he'd told me, and to read the brochure he'd given me, all about the Transcontinental Race Train. I went through the brochure during breakfast in my hotel.

The train, I learned, was basically divided into three parts. The front four carriages would hold the luggage, the horses and the grooms; the next five provided accommodation for the race­goers. It was the final five carriages which concerned me most.

First, there were the sleeping compartments for the staff -waiters (including me), cooks, travel agent and other officials of the railway. Then, the next two carriages consisted of the extremely luxurious sleeping-compartments for the owners. Lastly, there was the first-class dining-car and a carriage with a bar for the owners to sit in when they were not eating meals. The overall impression was one of great style and luxury: no expense had been spared. And one would undoubtedly have to be very wealthy to buy a ticket for the Transcontinental Race Train.

The train would travel west, from Toronto to Vancouver. Apart from short stops for the engine to take on fuel, and for more food and water to be taken on board, there was to be an overnight stop in Winnipeg, in a top-class hotel, with a special horse-race laid on, and generous prize money for the winner. Another special attraction would be staying in a hotel in the mountains: the hotel brochure promised amazing views of natural beauty, including a glacier. Then the train would descend to Vancouver, on the west coast, where the trip would end with another horse-race. It sounded like one long party — and it sounded as though being a waiter was going to be hard work.

The Transcontinental Race Train had been running once a year for several years by now, and the races attracted huge crowds. People flooded into Winnipeg and Vancouver from all over Canada — not to say from all over the world — and the regular transcontinental train, called the Canadian, followed the Race Train all the way across Canada, bringing extra racegoers who couldn't afford the cost of a place on the Race Train itself.

Chapter 3    Some Very Important People

Bill Baudelaire came to my hotel room in the middle of the morning. I ordered coffee, and he filled me in on some further details.

I asked him why he hadn't simply blocked Filmer's place on the Race Train.

'Believe me,' he said, 'if I could have, I would have. I rang Catto to ask what I could do. Were there any grounds for banning Filmer, I asked? He said that there was no firm evidence. If he'd ever been found guilty of anything, even a parking ticket . .. But he hadn't, so anything I could have done to keep Filmer off the train would have been illegal; Filmer could have protested that he was being persecuted, and more people would have believed him. So I asked Catto whether, since we couldn't get Filmer off the train, we could get one of our men on the train. Here in Canada we don't have anyone quite like you in our Jockey Club. So here you are. I hope you're as good as Catto says you are.'

I murmured something modest.

'One thing our brochure doesn't mention, Tor,' Baudelaire went on, 'is that we allow anyone who owns his own private rail car to apply for it to be joined on to the train. This year, unusually, we had an applicant: Mercer Lorrimore.'

He sat back in his chair, looking satisfied with himself. He had spoken the name as if I should recognize it, but I must have looked blank. He raised an eyebrow. 'Don't tell me I have to explain who Mercer Lorrimore is,' he said.

'I'm afraid so,' I answered.

'He's only about the richest man in Canada,' said Baudelaire. Most of his money comes from banking. He and his family are known all over Canada; the society and gossip columns of the magazines and newspapers would be lost without them.

Whatever else anyone can say about him, though, no one can deny that Mercer loves horses and horse-racing. He has some wonderful horses.'

'And he's coming on your train,' I said.

'Yes,' said Baudelaire, 'and so is the rest of his family too - his wife Bambi, their son Sheridan, who's about twenty, and their teenage daughter Xanthe.'

'And you say they'll have a separate car,' I said.

'Yes, it'll be added on to the rear of the train.'

'One other thing,' I said, 'before I forget. How will I get in touch with you, if I need to? I don't want to ring your office at the Jockey Club, because the fewer Club members who know that I'm on the train, the better. Can I ring you at home?'

'I wouldn't advise that,' he said. 'My three daughters are never off the phone. Why don't you ring my mother? She'll pass messages on to me; I'll be sure to tell her where I'll be. She's always at home, because she's bedridden.'

'All right,' I said, 'if you say so.' He wrote the number down
on a piece of paper and gave it to me. But I wasn't particularly
happy, since I imagined that a bedridden old woman would have
a leaky memory, and be slightly deaf, and so on.              *

My last visit in Ottawa, before leaving for Toronto, was to the office of the travel company who were arranging the whole trip. Since I was to be disguised as a waiter on the train, it had been necessary to let someone in their office in on the secret — without letting them know exactly what my job was. It was the travel agent who would accompany the passengers throughout the trip who had been told. Her name was Nell Richmond. I soon found her desk in the office and introduced myself. She had fair hair and grey eyes and was about my age – between twenty-five and thirty. I was immediately glad she was going to be on the train.

Our conversation was constantly interrupted by the telephone on her desk ringing. She coped with all the calls in a calm, efficient manner, her eyes occasionally meeting mine with a kind of humorous or curious look, as if to learn about me. But between phone calls I managed to find out where in Toronto I should report to pick up my waiter's uniform, and she gave me a pass to get on the train.

'I don't really know what you're doing,' she said, 'and I'm not sure I want to know. But Mr Baudelaire was most insistent that I should give you any information you want. What can I tell you?'

All about yourself, I thought, but said out loud: 'Do you have a plan of who sleeps where?'

'Certainly,' she said. She pulled it out of her file and gave it to me. 'Anything else?'

'No, I don't think so,' I said. 'Oh, you could tell me if this is complete.'

I showed her a list I'd drawn up of all the staff and owners who would be in the end carriages of the train. She checked it carefully, occasionally brushing her hair out of her eyes.

'I've nothing to add to that,' she said. 'But there is one new arrival, further up the train. Baudelaire rang a short while ago to say that he had arranged for a woman called Leslie Brown to check who comes and goes in the horse-car. Only owners and grooms are allowed in. The horses aren't in any danger, are they?'

'I wish I knew,' I said.

Chapter 4    The Drinks Party

Early the next morning, Nell and I caught a train together to Toronto, since the Race Train was due to leave in the evening.

During the journey, we chatted about this and that - her job, my job, her ambition to become a writer, and so on. Of course, each of us made sure that the other was not married! I also made sure that she would not tell anyone else on the Race Train what my job was — as much as she knew about it.

'Nell,' I had asked, 'are you good at keeping secrets?'

'I keep half a dozen every day before breakfast,' she replied. 'Why? What secret do you want me to keep?'

'It's very important that no one on the train knows that I am not what I seem to be - a waiter,' I said. 'I mean, there may be one or two other people who have to know, but I must be the one to tell them. And that means not only that you mustn't say anything, but also that you'll have to be careful not to give me away by anything you do — any look on your face, or something like that. OK?'             

'OK,' she agreed. 'You're a real mystery man.'

We parted at the station not just as good friends, but something more: there was a strong attraction between us, which we had both been deliberately feeding with the occasional approving glance and with the light and easy mood of our conversation. I kissed her goodbye on the cheek, and she left to go about her travel agent's business.

I made my way to the uniform centre and was measured up for a waiter's uniform. I was given a grey jacket, two pairs of grey trousers, five white shirts, two gold waistcoats, and two striped ties in the railway company's colours. I particularly admired myself in a waistcoat.

The Race Train was already standing at the platform, so I went there, boarded and introduced myself to the rest of the crew. The head waiter was a small Frenchman called Emil.

'Have you ever worked in a restaurant?' he asked.

'No, I haven't.'

'Never mind,' he said. 'I'll show you how to set places, and give you only easy jobs to do. Even so, we'll appreciate the extra

help.'

He gave me a copy of the train's timetable, explaining that I should learn it by heart, since the most common question passengers ask is where and when the next stop is. Passengers expect anyone in a uniform to know absolutely everything about the train, he said. Then he introduced me to the rest of the dining-car staff— Cathy and Oliver, my fellow waiters; Angus, the Scottish cook; and Simone, Angus's assistant.

'The first job,' Emil announced, 'is to prepare for a drinks party when the passengers board. We have half an hour, so come on.'

I asked Emil to show me first where my sleeping compart­ment was, so that I could change into my uniform. Then I returned to the dining-car and helped the others.

The Race Train was so famous that a large crowd of people came just to watch the fortunate few board.

Julius Filmer was among the first to arrive, looking as elegant as usual in a long grey coat and a patterned silk scarf. He came with a woman who could only be Daffodil Quentin: when you are no longer young and you have a name like that, I thought, you are bound to colour your hair blonde. You are bound to wear too much make-up and show off your expensive fur coat even when it's a warm evening.

Most of the passengers went to their bedrooms first, before coming to the dining-car for the drinks party. The dining-car was rapidly filling up and I was busy serving champagne when the Lorrimores made their entrance. Mercer Lorrimore and his wife Bambi looked quite ordinary: only their clothes and perfect haircuts announced their wealth. Behind them were a young man and a sulky teenage girl — Sheridan and Xanthe, their children.

'Where do we sit?' Mercer asked me.

'Anywhere you like, sir,' I said.

They saw an unoccupied table and made their way towards it. Sheridan pushed past an elderly couple, nearly spilling their champagne, and sat down, saying in a loud voice, 'I don't see why we have to sit in here when we have our own private car.' Mercer told him to be quiet and to behave; Bambi and Xanthe stared out of the window - whether in boredom or embarrassment, it was hard to tell.

Soon the car was full. Julius and Daffodil shared a table with the elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Young. I listened to their conversation as much as I could, but it was all perfectly innocent.

Nell was acting the efficient hostess, making sure that everyone was happy and calling them all by name. Only the Lorrimores were sitting in silence, while everyone else was chatting and getting to know one another. At one point, Nell passed me as I was coming out of the kitchen with more drinks.

I looked at her with admiration. 'You're wonderful,' I said....