Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect

Ernie and Royce talk in Royce’s filthy cabin, which Ernie secretly wants to inspect for clues. As they talk, Royce begins taking notes in his notebook; Ernie fails to understand that Royce is trying to investigate Ernie too. When Ernie says that he thinks McTavish was poisoned with something in his flask, Royce treats this like an admission. Ernie clarifies that he’s looking for Royce’s help as a former pathologist, but Royce is clearly set on his idea that Ernie is the killer. He tells Ernie that he has solved the case, and Ernie is incensed at the idea that Royce has worked it out ahead of him. Royce then says that the only thing he hasn’t figured out is where Ernie got the heroin to kill McTavish, and Ernie finally realizes that Royce is accusing him of killing McTavish to get material for his book. Ernie eventually convinces Royce that he might not be the killer and might genuinely just be looking for Royce’s advice. They depart to look at the body together, but not before Ernie takes note of the very sharp and sturdy Gemini Publishing pen that Royce is holding.

Ernie and Royce persuade Aaron, who is reluctant, to let them examine McTavish’s body. Aaron tells Ernie that this is far from the worst thing he’s ever seen on the Ghan; 30 years ago, for instance, when it was still a freight train, the Ghan struck a school bus that was parked on the track. Four children, a teacher, and the bus driver were killed. Ernie directly addresses readers, commenting that “the past, in mystery novels, never sleeps. A second case always becomes important to the overall solution which […] is going to be the case here. Of course, there are a few timelines and second cases to choose from” (140). Royce announces that he needs to see McTavish’s room and his flask. When they arrive at McTavish’s room, Aaron opens the door and, seeing someone inside, angrily demands to know what the person is doing there.

Brooke sits on the floor of McTavish’s room, rifling through some papers. Royce draws Ernie’s attention to an expensive, half-full bottle of whiskey. Ernie realizes that McTavish himself gave Brooke a key to the room: His comment about the whiskey being too nice to drink alone was an invitation for her to share it with him. Brooke admits that McTavish was her hero but says that she was upset when he treated her like a sexual object and she refused to engage. In the trash, Ernie finds bloody tissues and a card saying, “From an admirer” (145). What he doesn’t see anywhere in the carriage is McTavish’s typewriter; he finds only a single pen. He sees Royce hide a piece of paper in his pocket. Royce asks Aaron about the flask, but when Aaron radios Cynthia, she says that she already washed it.

Ernie picks up a paper on which someone was trying to work out the significance of the name Archibald Bench. He allows Brooke to take it, assuming that it fell out of her scrapbook. When he accuses her of being in McTavish’s room to take his final manuscript as a souvenir, she admits that this is true. Ernie suspects that Brooke gave McTavish the bloody nose but keeps this to himself. Brooke shows him a 2003 review of McTavish’s second book that criticizes it as a poor follow-up to his successful debut. The reviewer mentions an Edinburgh writers’ panel that McTavish sat on that year, along with Lisa Fulton and S. F. Majors. Brooke points out that this took place a year before the publication of Off the Rails, McTavish’s third book, the one that returned him to his successful status and that Majors was asking questions about during the recent festival panel. Brooke makes the connection explicit: McTavish stole the idea for the book from Majors. Ernie asks about her Archie Bench comment, and she cryptically replies that Archie Bench is the reason she would not have killed McTavish. Royce appears and comments that Fulton and McTavish had sex in Edinburgh and that “Henry said she was a real firecracker of a lay” (155). The train comes to a sudden stop: They’ve arrived in Alice Springs.

Ernie and Juliette explore the town, stopping for dessert at a place that Majors recommended. They then join an excursion to Simpsons Gap. Most of the people from the train are along, enjoying the natural scenery. Harriet and Jasper take selfies, and Fulton puts some aloe on Brooke’s one sunburned arm. Ernie overhears part of an argument between Harriet and Jasper about something Jasper has agreed to do because he’s being offered a lot of money. When the group returns to the train, Ernie spots Douglas on the platform, surreptitiously tossing something into a trash can. When Ernie slips away to investigate, he finds that Douglas has thrown away a revolver.