The Man in the Brown Suit
should take it into their heads to come and look at me.
They did not do so, however. After about an hour, I crept down the
stairs, but the Kafir by the door was awake and humming softly to
himself. I was anxious to get out of the house, but I did not quite
see how to manage it.
In the end I was forced to retreat to the attic again. The Kafir
was clearly on guard for the night. I remained there patiently all
through the sounds of early morning preparation. The men breakfasted
in the hall, I could hear their voices distinctly floating up the
stairs. I was getting thoroughly unnerved. How on earth was I to
get out of the house?
I counselled myself to be patient. A rash move might spoil
everything. After breakfast came the sounds of Chichester departing.
To my intense relief, the Dutchman accompanied him.
I waited breathlessly. Breakfast was being cleared away, the work
of the house was being done. At last, the various activities seemed
to die down. I slipped out from my lair once more. Very carefully
I crept down the stairs. The hall was empty. Like a flash I was
across it, had unlatched the door, and was outside in the sunshine.
I ran down the drive like one possessed.
Once outside, I resumed a normal walk. People stared at me
curiously, and I do not wonder. My face and clothes must have been
covered in dust from rolling about in the attic. At last I came to
a garage. I went in.
“I have met with an accident,” I explained. “I want a car to take
me to Cape Town at once. I must catch the boat to Durban.”
I had not long to wait. Ten minutes later I was speeding along in
the direction of Cape Town. I must know if Chichester was on the
boat. Whether to sail on her myself or not, I could not determine,
but in the end I decided to do so. Chichester would not know that
I had seen him in the Villa at Muizenberg. He would doubtless lay
further traps for me, but I was forewarned. And he was the man I
was after, the man who was seeking the diamonds on behalf of the
mysterious “Colonel.”
Alas, for my plans! As I arrived at the docks, the _Kilmorden
Castle_ was steaming out to sea. And I had no means of knowing
whether Chichester had sailed on her or not!
CHAPTER XX
I drove to the hotel. There was no one in the lounge that I knew.
I ran upstairs and tapped on Suzanne’s door. Her voice bade me
“come in.” When she saw who it was she literally fell on my neck.
“Anne, dear, where have you been? I’ve been worried to death about
you. What have you been doing?”
“Having adventures,” I replied. “Episode III of ‘The Perils of
Pamela.’”
I told her the whole story. She gave vent to a deep sigh when I
finished.
“Why do these things always happen to you?” she demanded plaintively.
“Why does no one gag me and bind me hand and foot?”
“You wouldn’t like it if they did,” I assured her. “To tell you
the truth, I’m not nearly so keen on having adventures myself as
I was. A little of that sort of thing goes a long way.”
Suzanne seemed unconvinced. An hour or two of gagging and binding
would have changed her views quickly enough. Suzanne likes thrills,
but she hates being uncomfortable.
“And what are we all doing now?” she asked.
“I don’t quite know,” I said thoughtfully. “You still go to
Rhodesia, of course, to keep an eye on Pagett——”
“And you?”
That was just my difficulty. Had Chichester gone on the _Kilmorden,_
or had he not? Did he mean to carry out his original plan of going
to Durban? The hour of his leaving Muizenberg seemed to point to
an affirmative answer to both questions. In that case, I might go
to Durban by train. I fancied that I should get there before the
boat. On the other hand, if the news of my escape were wired to
Chichester, and also the information that I had left Cape Town for
Durban, nothing was simpler for him than to leave the boat at
either Port Elizabeth or East London and so give me the slip
completely.
It was rather a knotty problem.
“We’ll inquire about trains to Durban anyway,” I said.
“And it’s not too late for morning tea,” said Suzanne. “We’ll have
it in the lounge.”
The Durban train left at 8.15 that evening, so they told me at the
office. For the moment I postponed decision and joined Suzanne for
somewhat belated “eleven-o’clock tea.”
“Do you feel that you would really recognize Chichester again—in
any other disguise, I mean?” asked Suzanne.
I shook my head ruefully.
“I certainly didn’t recognize him as the stewardess, and never
should have but for your drawing.”
“The man’s a professional actor, I’m sure of it,” said Suzanne
thoughtfully. “His make-up is perfectly marvellous. He might come
off the boat as a navvy or something, and you’d never spot him.”
“You’re very cheering,” I said.
At that minute, Colonel Race stepped in through the window and came
and joined us.
“What is Sir Eustace doing?” asked Suzanne. “I haven’t seen him
about to-day.”
Rather an odd expression passed over the Colonel’s face.
“He’s got a little trouble of his own to attend to which is keeping
him busy.”
“Tell us about it.”
“I mustn’t tell tales out of school.”
“Tell us something—even if you have to invent it for our special
benefit.”
“Well, what would you say to the famous ‘Man in the Brown Suit’
having made the voyage with us?”
_“What?”_
I felt the colour die out of my face and then surge back again.
Fortunately Colonel Race was not looking at me.
“It’s a fact, I believe. Every port watched for him and he
bamboozled Pedler into bringing him out as his secretary!”
“Not Mr. Pagett?”
“Oh, not Pagett—the other fellow. Rayburn, he called himself.”
“Have they arrested him?” asked Suzanne. Under the table she gave
my hand a reassuring squeeze. I waited breathlessly for an answer.
“He seems to have disappeared into thin air.”
“How does Sir Eustace take it?”
“Regards it as a personal insult offered him by Fate.”
An opportunity of hearing Sir Eustace’s views on the matter
presented itself later in the day. We were awakened from a
refreshing afternoon nap by a page-boy with a note. In touching
terms it requested the pleasure of our company at tea in his
sitting-room.
The poor man was indeed in a pitiable state. He poured out his
troubles to us, encouraged by Suzanne’s sympathetic murmurs. (She
does that sort of thing very well.)
“First a perfectly strange woman has the impertinence to get
herself murdered in my house—on purpose to annoy me, I do believe.
Why my house? Why, of all the houses in Great Britain, choose the
Mill House? What harm had I ever done the woman that she must needs
get herself murdered there?”
Suzanne made one of her sympathetic noises again and Sir Eustace
proceeded in a still more aggrieved tone.
“And, if that’s not enough, the fellow who murdered her has the
impudence, the colossal impudence, to attach himself to me as my
secretary. My secretary, if you please! I’m tired of secretaries,
I won’t have any more secretaries. Either they’re concealed
murderers or else they’re drunken brawlers. Have you seen Pagett’s
black eye? But of course you have. How can I go about with a
secretary like that? And his face is such a nasty shade of yellow
too—just the colour that doesn’t go with a black eye. I’ve done
with secretaries—unless I have a girl. A nice girl, with liquid
eyes, who’ll hold my hand when I’m feeling cross. What about you,
Miss Anne. Will you take on the job?”
“How often shall I have to hold your hand?” I asked, laughing.
“All day long,” replied Sir Eustace gallantly.
“I shan’t get much typing done at that rate,” I reminded him.
“That doesn’t matter. All this work is Pagett’s idea. He works me
to death. I’m looking forward to leaving him behind in Cape Town.”
“He is staying behind?”
“Yes, he’ll enjoy himself thoroughly sleuthing about after Rayburn.
That’s the sort of thing suits Pagett down to the ground. He adores
intrigue. But I’m quite serious in my offer. Will you come? Mrs.
Blair here is a competent chaperon, and you can have a half-holiday
every now and again to dig for bones.”
“Thank you very much, Sir Eustace,” I said cautiously, “but I think
I’m leaving for Durban to-night.”
“Now don’t be an obstinate girl. Remember, there are lots of lions
in Rhodesia. You’ll like lions. All girls do.”
“Will they be practising low jumps?” I asked, laughing. “No, thank
you very much, but I must go to Durban.”
Sir Eustace looked at me, sighed deeply, then opened the door of
the adjoining room and called to Pagett.
“If you’ve quite finished your afternoon sleep, my dear fellow,
perhaps you’d do a little work for change.”
Guy Pagett appeared in the doorway. He bowed to us both, starting
slightly at the sight of me, and replied in a melancholy voice:
“I have been typing that memorandum all this afternoon, Sir
Eustace.”
“Well, stop typing it then. Go down to the Trade Commissioner’s
Office, or the Board of Agriculture, or the Chamber of Mines, or
one of these places, and ask them to lend me some kind of a woman
to take to Rhodesia. She must have liquid eyes and not object to
my holding her hand.”
“Yes, Sir Eustace. I will ask for a competent short-hand-typist.”
“Pagett’s a malicious fellow,” said Sir Eustace, after the secretary
had departed. “I’d be prepared to bet that he’ll pick out some
slab-faced creature on purpose to annoy me. She must have nice feet
too—I forgot to mention that.”
I clutched Suzanne excitedly by the hand and almost dragged her
along to her room.
“Now, Suzanne,” I said, “we’ve got to make plans—and make them
quickly. Pagett is staying behind here—you heard that?”
“Yes. I suppose that means that I shan’t be allowed to go to
Rhodesia—which is very annoying, because I _want_ to go to Rhodesia.
How tiresome.”
“Cheer up,” I said. “You’re going all right. I don’t see how you
could back out at the last moment without its appearing frightfully
suspicious. And, besides, Pagett might suddenly be summoned by Sir
Eustace, and it would be far harder for you to attach yourself to
him for the journey up.”
“It would hardly be respectable,” said Suzanne, dimpling. “I should
have to pretend a fatal passion for him as an excuse.”
“On the other hand, if you were there when he arrived, it would
all be perfectly simple and natural. Besides, I don’t think we
ought to lose sight of the other two entirely.”
“Oh, Anne, you surely can’t suspect Colonel Race or Sir Eustace?”
“I suspect everybody,” I said darkly, “and if you’ve read any
detective stories, Suzanne, you must know that it’s always the most
unlikely person who’s the villain. Lots of criminals have been
cheerful fat men like Sir Eustace.”
“Colonel Race isn’t particularly fat—or particularly cheerful
either.”
“Sometimes they’re lean and saturnine,” I retorted. “I don’t say
I seriously suspect either of them, but, after all, the woman was
murdered in Sir Eustace’s house——”
“Yes, yes, we needn’t go over all that again. I’ll watch him for
you, Anne, and if he gets any fatter and any more cheerful, I’ll
send you a telegram at once. ‘Sir E. swelling. Highly suspicious.
Come at once.’”
“Really, Suzanne,” I cried, “you seem to think all this is a game!”
“I know I do,” said Suzanne, unabashed. “It seems like that. It’s
your fault, Anne. I’ve got imbued with your ‘Let’s have an
adventure’ spirit. It doesn’t seem a bit real. Dear me, if Clarence
knew that I was running about Africa tracking dangerous criminals,
he’d have a fit.”
“Why don’t you cable him about it?” I asked sarcastically.
Suzanne’s sense of humour always fails her when it comes to sending
cables. She considered my suggestion in perfectly good faith.
“I might. It would have to be a very long one.” Her eyes brightened
at the thought. “But I think it’s better not. Husbands always want