Thomas and Friends: Mystery on the Golden Arrow

"I'm not sure how much I'd be able to contribute to the situation, but I'll try." The train manager looked over the table. "I can tell you where I was on the night of the stolen cake."

"And where was that?" Goldie asked, firmly but with a reasonable tone to her voice.

The train manager nodded. "I was in the brake coach, communicating with the locomotive crew. A passenger had commented on some rough acceleration as we pulled out of a platform after a passenger pickup. I was asking them not to accelerate too quickly, as it was causing soup to start to slosh about."

Goldie noted down the heavy use of sybillance in the train manager's speech and looked over to the door. "That would be quite messy. But that does seem a bit odd to run at those sorts of speeds on a dining train." She began musing to herself. "Almost as if somebody knows something they aren't letting on."

"You're not suggesting the engine driver was in on this?" the train manager said.

"No. But it has given me an idea. Up to this point, I had been working on the assumption that only one person was behind the theft of the cake. But what if two people were, in fact, working together?" Goldie flipped to a new page in her notebook, as the prior page was basically full. She then noted a new heading down. "What if it's somebody we weren't suspecting?"

Suddenly, a person whizzed past them and into the next carriage.

"After them!" Goldie said.

Ruby Jubilee had just finished an afternoon performance when she noticed something was awry. "Thank you everybody!" she said. "That's all for now, but come back later this evening for another set. That'll be old classics sung a new way!"

Just then, she spotted somebody push through the crowd and out the other door. "What in the?"

Not long after that, Goldie appeared. "After him!" she called, and continued through the room.

How in the world was she running in a dress like that and heels? Ruby found moving at speed in this difficult enough. "Excuse me, everybody. I've got something I need to do." With that she pulled her skirts up and began to follow down the corridor to gain a bit more speed.

Once she was through the doors and out the other side, she was in one of the dining coaches, where the serving staff were still removing plates and silverware from lunch. Ruby stopped to let several trolleys loaded with plates pass by, then continued down the corridor, aware she was falling behind.

Just then, she heard a voice from up ahead. "Block the corridor, Sunny!"

Ruby shook her head, feeling a little silly. In the circumstances she had forgotten that the woman was Sunny's mother. She continued on regardless, and just then saw the crowd up ahead had stopped.

Sunny was standing in the pathway, and sure enough the person they'd been chasing abruptly turned back towards them.

Ruby had an idea. She dropped the skirt down and stopped. At full width it blocked the corridor and stopped the other person from doubling back. "Nice try, but you're not getting away."

The man stopped, and turned back to Goldie, who was now standing in the middle.

"Now then, could you kindly explain why you started running when I suggested that what if it's somebody we weren't suspecting?"

The man nodded. "I took the cake. But it's not what you think it is."

"It's always the last person you suspect!" Argyle said from a nearby table.

Goldie sighed. "But normally you can figure out it was them from context clues or at least somewhat suspect them. I would never have come to this conclusion. It's like the plot resolution of a Gilbert and Sullivan oparetta!"

"Who's Gilbert and Sullivan?" asked the man.

"Am I interrogating you or are you interrogating me?" Goldie asked.

"Fair point."

"Anyway," Goldie said, keen to get the plot back on track, "why did you steal the cake?"

"The cake is in the baggage car," the man revealed. "The truth is that it wasn't my idea to steal the cake. You see, I am an actor. The company hired me to move the cake, as previous feedback from patrons has stated that passengers would prefer to have some drama whilst the train is on the move. This whole thing was staged as a mystery for the passengers to solve."

Goldie nodded. "How very odd. Seems an unusual thing not to advertise." She shrugged. "But having said that I did have fun solving the mystery, as did we all."

"Shall we have the cake then?" Sunny suggested.

Ruby laughed. "I propose we do one better and eat it!"

With the mystery of the theft of the cake succesfully resolved, all returned to merriment onboard the Golden Arrow. The passengers enjoyed another night of good food and dancing, with the central coach cheerfully sounding to the delightful tones of positive music.

When the journey came to an end at Waterloo the next day, the passengers all disembarked, having returned to normal attire in the interim. Although it had been an interesting time, there was no doubt they had all had a good, relaxing time onboard. They had boarded as strangers but left as friends.

Would they stay in contact? Only time would tell.

But, sure enough, people were certain it was time well spent.

And it would have been much needed. Little did anybody know, but the coming times would bring intense challenges for them all, and the world would once again need to call upon the skills of the residents of Falmouth.

Life had become but a weirdness magnet for them, but that was simply part of the challenge of negotiating life in the brave new world that magic had created. And you either grab opportunity with both hands or let it pass you by.

And they knew which they'd rather take.