The Man in the Brown Suit
thought with Mrs. Blair?
Suddenly I flew at her and almost shook her in my excitement.
“Your films! The ones that were passed to you through the
ventilator? Wasn’t that on the 22nd?”
“The ones I lost?”
“How do you know they were the same? Why would any one return them
to you that way—in the middle of the night? It’s a mad idea.
No—they were a message, the films had been taken out of the yellow
tin case, and something else put inside. Have you got it still?”
“I may have used it. No, here it is. I remember I tossed it into
the rack at the side of the bunk.”
She held it out to me.
It was an ordinary round tin cylinder, such as films are packed in
for the tropics. I took it with trembling hand, but even as I did
so my heart leapt. It was noticeably heavier than it should have
been.
With shaking fingers I peeled off the strip of adhesive plaster
that kept it air-tight. I pulled off the lid, and a stream of dull
glassy pebbles rolled onto the bed.
“Pebbles,” I said, keenly disappointed.
“Pebbles?” cried Suzanne.
The ring in her voice excited me.
“Pebbles? No, Anne, not pebbles! _Diamonds!_”
CHAPTER XV
Diamonds!
I stared, fascinated, at the glassy heap on the bunk. I picked up
one which, but for the weight, might have been a fragment of broken
bottle.
“Are you sure, Suzanne?”
“Oh, yes, my dear. I’ve seen rough diamonds too often to have any
doubts. They’re beauties too, Anne—and some of them are unique, I
should say. There’s a history behind these.”
“The history we heard to-night,” I cried.
“You mean——?”
“Colonel Race’s story. It can’t be a coincidence. He told it for
a purpose.”
“To see its effect, you mean?”
I nodded.
“Its effect on Sir Eustace?”
“Yes.”
But, even as I said it, a doubt assailed me. _Was_ it Sir Eustace
who had been subjected to a test, or had the story been told for
_my_ benefit? I remembered the impression I had received on that
former night of having been deliberately “pumped.” For some reason
or other, Colonel Race was suspicious. But where did he come in?
What possible connection could he have with the affair?
“Who _is_ Colonel Race?” I asked.
“That’s rather a question,” said Suzanne. “He’s pretty well known
as a big-game hunter, and, as you heard him say to-night, he was
a distant cousin of Sir Laurence Eardsley. I’ve never actually met
him until this trip. He journeys to and from Africa a good deal.
There’s a general idea that he does Secret Service work. I don’t
know whether it’s true or not. He’s certainly rather a mysterious
creature.”
“I suppose he came into a lot of money as Sir Laurence Eardsley’s
heir?”
“My dear Anne, he must be _rolling._ You know, he’d be a splendid
match for you.”
“I can’t have a good go at him with you aboard the ship,” I said,
laughing. “Oh, these married women!”
“We do have a pull,” murmured Suzanne complacently. “And everybody
knows that I am absolutely devoted to Clarence—my husband, you
know. It’s so safe and pleasant to make love to a devoted wife.”
“It must be very nice for Clarence to be married to some one like
you.”
“Well, I’m wearing to live with! Still, he can always escape to
the Foreign Office, where he fixes his eyeglass in his eye, and
goes to sleep in a big arm-chair. We might cable him to tell us
all he knows about Race. I love sending cables. And they annoy
Clarence so. He always says a letter would have done as well. I
don’t suppose he’d tell us anything, though. He is so frightfully
discreet. That’s what makes him so hard to live with for long on
end. But let us go on with our matchmaking. I’m sure Colonel Race
is very attracted to you, Anne. Give him a couple of glances from
those wicked eyes of yours, and the deed is done. Every one gets
engaged on board ship. There’s nothing else to do.”
“I don’t want to get married.”
“Don’t you?” said Suzanne. “Why not? I love being married—even to
Clarence!”
I disdained her flippancy.
“What I want to know is,” I said with determination, “what has
Colonel Race got to do with this? He’s in it somewhere.”
“You don’t think it was mere chance, his telling that story?”
“No, I don’t,” I said decidedly. “He was watching us all narrowly.
You remember, _some_ of the diamonds were recovered, not all.
Perhaps these are the missing ones—or perhaps——”
“Perhaps what?”
I did not answer directly.
“I should like to know,” I said, “what became of the other young
man. Not Eardsley but—what was his name?—Lucas!”
“We’re getting some light on the thing, anyway. It’s the diamonds
all these people are after. It must have been to obtain possession
of the diamonds that ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’ killed Nadina.”
“He didn’t kill her,” I said sharply.
“Of course he killed her. Who else could have done so?”
“I don’t know. But I’m sure he didn’t kill her.”
“He went into that house three minutes after her and came out as
white as a sheet.”
“Because he found her dead.”
“But nobody else went in.”
“Then the murderer was in the house already, or else he got in some
other way. There’s no need for him to pass the lodge, he could have
climbed over the wall.”
Suzanne glanced at me sharply.
“‘The Man in the Brown Suit,’” she mused. “Who was he, I wonder?
Anyway, he was identical with the ‘doctor’ in the Tube. He would
have had time to remove his make-up and follow the woman to Marlow.
She and Carton were to have met there, they both had an order to
view the same house, and if they took such elaborate precautions
to make their meeting appear accidental they must have suspected
they were being followed. All the same, Carton did _not_ know that
his shadower was the ‘Man in the Brown Suit.’ When he recognized
him, the shock was so great that he lost his head completely and
stepped back onto the line. That all seems pretty clear, don’t you
think so, Anne?”
I did not reply.
“Yes, that’s how it was. He took the paper from the dead man, and
in his hurry to get away he dropped it. Then he followed the woman
to Marlow. What did he do when he left there, when he had killed
her—or, according to you, found her dead. Where did he go?”
Still I said nothing.
“I wonder, now,” said Suzanne musingly. “Is it possible that he
induced Sir Eustace Pedler to bring him on board as his secretary?
It would be a unique chance of getting safely out of England, and
dodging the hue and cry. But how did he square Sir Eustace? It
looks as though he had some hold over him.”
“Or over Pagett,” I suggested in spite of myself.
“You don’t seem to like Pagett, Anne. Sir Eustace says he’s a most
capable and hard-working young man. And, really, he may be for all
we know against him. Well, to continue my surmises. Rayburn is the
‘Man in the Brown Suit.’ He had read the paper he dropped.
Therefore, misled by the dot as you were, he attempts to reach
Cabin 17 at one o’clock on the 22nd, having previously tried to
get possession of the cabin through Pagett. On the way there
somebody knifes him——”
“Who?” I interpolated.
“Chichester. Yes, it all fits in. Cable to Lord Nasby that you have
found ‘The Man in the Brown Suit,’ and your fortune’s made, Anne!”
“There are several things you’ve overlooked.”
“What things? Rayburn’s got a scar, I know—but a scar can be faked
easily enough. He’s the right height and build. What’s the
description of a head with which you pulverized them at Scotland
Yard?”
I trembled. Suzanne was a well-educated, well-read woman, but I
prayed that she might not be conversant with technical terms of
anthropology.
“Dolichocephalic,” I said lightly.
Suzanne looked doubtful.
“Was that it?”
“Yes. Long-headed, you know. A head whose width is less than 75
per cent. of its length,” I explained fluently.
There was a pause. I was just beginning to breathe freely when
Suzanne said suddenly:
“What’s the opposite?”
“What do you mean—the opposite?”
“Well, there must be an opposite. What do you call the heads whose
breadth is more than 75 per cent. of their length.”
“Brachycephalic,” I murmured unwillingly.
“That’s it. I thought that was what you said.”
“Did I? It was a slip of the tongue. I meant dolichocephalic,” I
said with all the assurance I could muster.
Suzanne looked at me searchingly. Then she laughed.
“You lie very well, Gipsy girl. But it will save time and trouble
now if you tell me all about it.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said unwillingly.
“Isn’t there?” said Suzanne gently.
“I suppose I shall have to tell you,” I said slowly. “I’m not
ashamed of it. You can’t be ashamed of something that just—happens
to you. That’s what he did. He was detestable—rude and ungrateful—but
that I think I understand. It’s like a dog that’s been chained
up—or badly treated—it’ll bite anybody. That’s what he was
like—bitter and snarling. I don’t know why I care—but I do. I care
horribly. Just seeing him has turned my whole life upside-down. I
love him. I want him. I’ll walk all over Africa barefoot till I
find him, and I’ll make him care for me. I’d die for him. I’d work
for him, slave for him, steal for him, even beg or borrow for him!
There—now you know!”
Suzanne looked at me for a long time.
“You’re very un-English, Gipsy girl,” she said at last. “There’s
not a scrap of the sentimental about you. I’ve never met any one
who was at once so practical and so passionate. I shall never care
for any one like that—mercifully for me—and yet—and yet I envy you,
Gipsy girl. It’s something to be able to care. Most people can’t.
But what a mercy for your little doctor man that you didn’t marry
him. He doesn’t sound at all the sort of individual who would enjoy
keeping high explosive in the house! So there’s to be no cabling
to Lord Nasby?”
I shook my head.
“And yet you believe him to be innocent?”
“I also believe that innocent people can be hanged.”
“Hm! yes. But, Anne dear, you can face facts, face them now. In
spite of all you say, he may have murdered this woman.”
“No,” I said. “He didn’t.”
“That’s sentiment.”
“No, it isn’t. He might have killed her. He may even have followed
her there with that idea in his mind. But he wouldn’t take a bit
of black cord and strangle her with it. If he’d done it, he would
have strangled her with his bare hands.”
Suzanne gave a little shiver. Her eyes narrowed appreciatively.
“Hm! Anne, I am beginning to see why you find this young man of
yours so attractive!”
CHAPTER XVI
I got an opportunity of tackling Colonel Race on the following
morning. The auction of the sweep had just been concluded, and we
walked up and down the deck together.
“How’s the gipsy this morning? Longing for land and her caravan?”
I shook my head.
“Now that the sea is behaving so nicely, I feel I should like to
stay on it for ever and ever.”
“What enthusiasm!”
“Well, isn’t it lovely this morning?”
We leant together over the rail. It was a glassy calm. The sea
looked as though it had been oiled. There were great patches of
colour on it, blue, pale green, emerald, purple and deep orange,
like a cubist picture. There was an occasional flash of silver that
showed the flying fish. The air was moist and warm, almost sticky.
Its breath was like a perfumed caress.
“That was a very interesting story you told us last night,” I said,
breaking the silence.
“Which one?”
“The one about the diamonds.”
“I believe women are always interested in diamonds.”
“Of course we are. By the way, what became of the other young man?
You said there were two of them.”
“Young Lucas? Well, of course, they couldn’t prosecute one without
the other, so he went scot-free too.”
“And what happened to him—eventually, I mean. Does any one know?”
Colonel Race was looking straight ahead of him out to sea. His face