William Johnston: Max Smart and the Ghastly Ghost Affair

“No, you go ahead,” Max said to the burly girls. “You know the old saying: Lady wrestlers first, if you don’t want your arm twisted.”

The burly girls accepted Max’s gentlemanly gesture. One by one, they began entering the dining car. As the second from the last entered the car and the door closed behind her, Max turned to 99, looking puzzled. “Did you see that?” he said. “I caught a glimpse of the inside of the dining car when the door was open and it looked like a corn field.”

“Max, don’t be silly.”

“Just watch,” Max said.

The door to the dining car opened and the last of the burly girls entered. Then the door quickly closed.

“Max, you’re right!” 99 said. “Only it doesn’t look like a field of corn. It looks like a pasture-with Jersey cows!”

“99-I have a theory.”

“What is it, Max?”

“Do you suppose those cows ate that corn?”

“Max, I don’t think that’s the most important-”

“The sheep couldn’t have done it, you know. The sheep are in the meadow. It’s the cows who are always in the corn. At least, according to the story I heard. Remember that story, 99? The sheep are in the meadow, the cows are in the corn, Little Bo Peep is fast asleep under the curds and whey, while Jack be Nimble-”

“Max! The important thing is, I think we better find out what’s behind that door!”

“You’re probably right, 99,” Max replied. Cautiously, he got hold of the doorknob. “Stand back,” he said. “I’m going to open it.” He turned the knob, then pulled. But the door remained closed. “It won’t open,” Max reported, puzzled. He released the knob.

Just then, the door opened by itself. Instead of entering the dining car, though, Max — who was next in line-stayed where he was. He and 99 looked past the open doorway. What they saw, rather than the inside of a dining car, was scenery. A meadow, a farm house, then a pond flashed by. A moment later, the door closed automatically.

“That explains it!” 99 said, impressed.

“It certainly does,” Max nodded. He turned to 99. “You tell me your idea of how it explains it, then I’ll tell you mine,” he said.

“Don’t you see, Max? That door to the dining car is operated by some sort of electronic timer. It lets in one passenger at a time. But, actually, the door opens into space. The passengers didn’t enter a dining car, they stepped off the train-to their deaths!”

Exactly the way I had it figured out, Max said approvingly.

“What should we do, Max?”

“I think we better find that conductor,” Max replied. “He’ll probably want to put a warning sign on this door.”

99 looked back along the aisle. “Max. . we seem to be the only passengers left.”

“I know that, 99. That’s why I want a sign on that door. We could get killed going to dinner this evening if something isn’t done about the dining car!”

Max and 99 located the conductor-the fat, jolly-looking man with the white beard-a short while later. He was in the lounge car alone, standing behind the soda fountain, mixing himself a chocolate soda. The conductor looked quite surprised when he saw Max and 99 enter the car and approach the soda fountain.

“We’d like to report an accident,” Max said.

“I can see it,” the conductor replied. “How come you two didn’t step off the train-to your deaths-with all the others?”

“No, no, that’s not the accident,” Max said. “The accident is that the door to the dining car- Oh, you know-” He peered at the conductor narrowly. “If you know about it,” he said, “Then apparently it wasn’t an accident-it was planned. And the only people I know who would plan a mass assassination are-”

The fat, jolly-looking, bearded conductor had produced a pistol from behind the soda fountain and was pointing it at Max and 99. “And the only person I know who would know that the only people he knew who would plan a mass assassination would be a Control agent,” he said. With the pistol, he gestured toward the front of the train. “March!” he ordered. “All the way to the engine!”

Max and 99 made their way up the aisle, with the conductor following them, keeping his gun pointed at them.

“Keep an eye out for a guy with feathers,” Max whispered to 99. “He’ll be the injun.”

“Not injun, Max. Engine.”

“Oh. I guess that does make a lot more sense. After all, we’re on a train, not a reservation. Although. . we have a compartment. And you can’t get a compartment without a reservation.” He looked thoughtful. “Just to be on the safe side, 99, keep an eye out for a guy with feathers, anyway.”

“All right, Max.”

They soon reached the engine. It was not easy to enter, however. More than a dozen men were crowded into a small space that normally accomodated only the engineer and the fireman.

“Coming through!” the conductor shouted. “Watch it! Coming through with Control agent prisoners!”

The men cleared a small passageway and Max and 99 and the conductor squeezed past, then reached a small, wispy, saucer-eyed, nervous-looking man who was seated at the controls of the train.

“Arbuthnot,” the conductor said to the man, “look what I caught!” He seemed proud.

Arbuthnot, KAOS’s master assassin, looked at Max and 99 and screamed. “Control agents! Get them out of here! Control agents have germs!” He then fainted.

“Wheeeee!” the man standing behind Arbuthnot shouted. “Now, it’s my turn.” He shoved Arbuthnot out of the seat and took his place at the controls.

“Give me a hand here,” the conductor said to Max and 99. “You two pick him up and carry him back to the lounge car. He looks like he needs a good stiff chocolate soda.”

“You said ‘give you a hand’,” Max replied. “What are you going to be doing?”

“Somebody has to carry the gun,” the conductor pointed out.

Max and 99 picked up Arbuthnot, who weighed not much more than a feather pillow, and maneuvered him out of the crowded engine, then headed back down the aisle with him toward the lounge car.

“Those men in the engine-” Max said to the conductor. “Were they, by any chance, a contingent of KAOS assassins on the way to a secret siminar?”

“That’s Classified information,” the conductor replied.

“How about this, then?” Max said. “What are all those KAOS assassins who are on their way to a secret seminar doing up there in the engine? Is that Classified?”

“Oh, no-I can tell you that,” the conductor replied. “When we were planning this trip, we voted on whether to travel by stolen plane or stolen train. Well, stolen train won by a wide margin. Almost all of us, we discovered, had a secret hankering to drive a train. I was the only one who didn’t-and I had a secret hankering to take tickets on a train and walk up and down the aisle calling ‘Lunch is now being served in the dining car.’ So, we hijacked this train to take us to the secret meeting place. That’s why all those KAOS assassins who are on their way to a secret seminar are up there in the engine. They’re playing engineer. Scratch a ruthless, hardbitten KAOS assassin, and, every time, you’ll find a cutesy-pie little kid underneath.”

“Assassinating all the other passengers-I suppose that was a kid trick, too!” 99 said.

“Are you kidding?” the conductor replied, hurt. “The way that was done? That had real technique-it was professional. A kid would’ve just gone through the cars with a machine gun, blasting away. It would’ve been fun, sure. But no technique.”

“He’s right, 99,” Max said. “There was certainly nothing amateurish about the way he wiped out those passengers. I think you owe him an apology.”