Free The Edge by Dick Francis

and not hearing a word their callers said.
    ‘Yes,’ she was saying. ‘Out at Mimico before ten. Four dozen, yes. Load them into the special dining car. Right. Good.’ She put the phone down and without pause said to me, ‘What secret do you want kept?’
    ‘That I’m employed by the Jockey Club … to deal with crises.’
    ‘Oh.’ It was a long sound of understanding. ‘All right, it’s a secret.’ She reflected briefly. ‘The actors are holding a run-through right now, not far away. I’ve got to see them some time today, so it may as well be at once. What do you want me to tell them?’
    ‘I’d like you to say that your company are putting me on the train as a trouble-spotter, because a whole train of racing people is a volatile mass looking for an excuse to explode. Say it’s a form of insurance.’
    ‘Which it is,’ she said.
    ‘Well, yes. And I also want to solve your problem of the forty-ninth seat. I want to go on the train as a waiter.’
    She didn’t blink but nodded. ‘Yes, OK. Good idea. Quite often we put one of the actors in as a waiter, but not actually on this trip, luckily. The rail company are very helpful when we ask. I’ll fix it. Come on, then, there’s such a lot still to do.’
    She moved fast without seeming to, and presently we were skimming round corners in her small blue car, pulling up with a jerk outside the garage of a large house.
    The rehearsal, if you could call it that, was actually going on in the garage itself, which held no car but a large trestle table, a lot of folding chairs, a portable gas heater and about ten men and women standing in groups.
    Nell introduced me without mentioning my name. ‘We’re taking him on the train as company eyes and ears. Anything you think might turn into trouble, tell him or me. He’s going as a service attendant, which will mean he can move everywhere through the train without question. OK? Don’t tell the paying passengers he’s one of us.’
    They shook their heads. Keeping the true facts from the passengers was their daily occupation.
    ‘OK,’ Nell said to me. ‘I’ll leave you here. Phone me later.’ She put a large envelope she was carrying onto the table, waved to the actors and vanished, and one of them, a man of about my own age with a mop-head of tight, light brown curls came forward, shook my hand and said, ‘She’s the best in the business. My name’s David Flynn, by the way, but call me Zak. That’s my name in the mystery. From nowon, we call each other by the mystery names, so as not to make mistakes in front of the passengers. You’d better have an acting name, too. How about … um … Tommy?’
    ‘It’s all right by me.’
    ‘Right, everybody, this is Tommy, a waiter.’
    They nodded, smiling, and I was introduced to them one by one in the names they would use on the train.
    ‘Mavis and Walter Bricknell, racehorse owners.’ They were middle-aged, dressed like the others in jeans and casual sweaters. ‘They’re married in real life too.’
    David/Zak went briskly along the row, an enormously positive person, wasting no time. ‘Ricky … a groom in the mystery, though he’ll be travelling with the racegoers, not the grooms. His part in the mystery finishes at Winnipeg, and he’ll be getting off there. This is Raoul, racehorse trainer for the Bricknells, their guest on the train. Ben, he’s an old groom who has ridden a few races.’ Ben grinned from a small, deeply-lined face, looking the part. ‘This is Giles: don’t be taken in by his good looks, he’s our murderer. This is Angelica, who you won’t see much of as she’s the first victim. And Pierre, he’s a compulsive gambler in love with the Bricknells’ daughter, Donna, and this is Donna. And last, this is James Winterbourne, he’s a big noise in the Ontario Jockey Club.’
    I don’t think I jumped. The big name in the Ontario Jockey Club wore a three-day beard and a red trilby hat, which he lifted to me ceremoniously. ‘Alas,’