The Man in the Brown Suit
to interfere with perfectly harmless amusements.”
“Well,” I said, summing up the situation, “you will keep an eye on
Sir Eustace and Colonel Race——”
“I know why I’ve got to watch Sir Eustace,” interrupted Suzanne,
“because of his figure and his humorous conversation. But I think
it’s carrying it rather far to suspect Colonel Race, I do indeed.
Why, he’s something to do with the Secret Service. Do you know,
Anne, I believe the best thing we could do would be to confide in
him and tell him the whole story.”
I objected vigorously to this unsporting proposal. I recognized in
it the disastrous effects of matrimony. How often have I not heard
a perfectly intelligent female say, in the tone of one clinching
an argument, _“Edgar_ says——” And all the time you are perfectly
aware that Edgar is a perfect fool. Suzanne, by reason of her
married state, was yearning to lean upon some man or other.
However, she promised faithfully that she would not breathe a word
to Colonel Race, and we went on with our plan-making.
“It’s quite clear that I must stay here and watch Pagett, and this
is the best way to do it. I must pretend to leave for Durban this
evening, take my luggage down and so on, but really I shall go to
some small hotel in the town. I can alter my appearance a
little—wear a fair toupee and one of those thick white lace veils,
and I shall have a much better chance of seeing what he’s really
at if he thinks I’m safely out of the way.”
Suzanne approved this plan heartily. We made due and ostentatious
preparations, inquiring once more about the departure of the train
at the office and packing my luggage.
We dined together in the restaurant. Colonel Race did not appear,
but Sir Eustace and Pagett were at their table in the window.
Pagett left the table half-way through the meal, which annoyed me,
as I had planned to say goodbye to him. However, doubtless Sir
Eustace would do as well. I went over to him when I had finished.
“Good-bye, Sir Eustace,” I said. “I’m off to-night to Durban.”
Sir Eustace sighed heavily.
“So I heard. You wouldn’t like me to come with you, would you?”
“I should love it.”
“Nice girl. Sure you won’t change your mind and come and look for
lions in Rhodesia?”
“Quite sure.”
“He must be a very handsome fellow,” said Sir Eustace plaintively.
“Some young whipper-snapper in Durban, I suppose, who puts my
mature charms completely in the shade. By the way, Pagett’s going
down in the car in a minute or two. He could take you to the
station.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” I said hastily. “Mrs. Blair and I have got
our own taxi ordered.”
To go down with Guy Pagett was the last thing I wanted! Sir Eustace
looked at me attentively.
“I don’t believe you like Pagett. I don’t blame you. Of all the
officious, interfering asses—going about with the air of a martyr,
and doing everything he can to annoy and upset me!”
“What has he done now?” I inquired with some curiosity.
“He’s got hold of a secretary for me. You never saw such a woman!
Forty, if she’s a day, wears pince-nez and sensible boots and an
air of brisk efficiency that will be the death of me. A regular
slab-faced woman.”
“Won’t she hold your hand?”
“I devoutly hope not!” exclaimed Sir Eustace. “That would be the
last straw. Well, good-bye, liquid eyes. If I shoot a lion I shan’t
give you the skin—after the base way you’ve deserted me.”
He squeezed my hand warmly and we parted. Suzanne was waiting for
me in the hall. She was to come down to see me off.
“Let’s start at once,” I said hastily, and motioned to the man to
get a taxi.
Then a voice behind me made me start:
“Excuse me, Miss Beddingfeld, but I’m just going down in a car. I
can drop you and Mrs. Blair at the station.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said hastily. “But there’s no need to trouble
you. I——”
“No trouble at all, I assure you. Put the luggage in, porter.”
I was helpless. I might have protested further, but a slight
warning nudge from Suzanne urged me to be on my guard.
“Thank you, Mr. Pagett,” I said coldly.
We all got into the car. As we raced down the road into the town,
I racked my brains for something to say. In the end Pagett himself
broke the silence.
“I have secured a very capable secretary for Sir Eustace,” he
observed. “Miss Pettigrew.”
“He wasn’t exactly raving about her just now,” I remarked.
Pagett looked at me coldly.
“She is a proficient shorthand-typist,” he said repressively.
We pulled up in front of the station. Here surely he would leave
us. I turned with outstretched hand—but no.
“I’ll come and see you off. It’s just eight o’clock, your train
goes in a quarter of an hour.”
He gave efficient directions to porters. I stood helpless, not
daring to look at Suzanne. The man suspected. He was determined to
make sure that I did go by the train. And what could I do? Nothing.
I saw myself, in a quarter of an hour’s time, steaming out of the
station with Pagett planted on the platform waving me adieu. He
had turned the tables on me adroitly. His manner towards me had
changed, moreover. It was full of an uneasy geniality which sat
ill upon him, and which nauseated me. The man was an oily hypocrite.
First he tried to murder me, and now he paid me compliments! Did
he imagine for one minute that I hadn’t recognized him that night
on the boat? No, it was a pose, a pose which he forced me to
acquiesce in, his tongue in his cheek all the while.
Helpless as a sheep, I moved along under his expert directions. My
luggage was piled in my sleeping compartment—I had a two-berth one
to myself. It was twelve minutes past eight. In three minutes the
train would start.
But Paggett had reckoned without Suzanne.
“It will be a terribly hot journey, Anne,” she said suddenly.
“Especially going through the Karoo to-morrow. You’ve got some
eau-de-Cologne or lavender water with you, haven’t you?”
My cue was plain.
“Oh, dear,” I cried. “I left my eau-de-Cologne on the dressing-table
at the hotel.”
Suzanne’s habit of command served her well. She turned imperiously
to Pagett.
“Mr. Pagett. Quick. You’ve just time. There’s a chemist almost
opposite the station. Anne must have some eau-de-Cologne.”
He hesitated, but Suzanne’s imperative manner was too much for him.
She is a born autocrat. He went. Suzanne followed him with her eyes
till he disappeared.
“Quick, Anne, get out the other side—in case he hasn’t really gone,
but is watching us from the end of the platform. Never mind your
luggage. You can telegraph about that to-morrow. Oh, if only the
train starts on time!”
I opened the gate on the opposite side to the platform and climbed
down. Nobody was observing me. I could just see Suzanne standing
where I had left her, looking up at the train and apparently
chatting to me at the window. A whistle blew, the train began to
draw out. Then I heard feet racing furiously up the platform. I
withdrew to the shadow of a friendly bookstall and watched.
Suzanne turned from waving her handkerchief to the retreating
train.
“Too late, Mr. Pagett,” she said cheerfully. “She’s gone. Is that
the eau-de-Cologne? What a pity we didn’t think of it sooner!”
They passed not far from me on their way out of the station. Guy
Pagett was extremely hot. He had evidently run all the way to the
chemist and back.
“Shall I get you a taxi, Mrs. Blair?”
Suzanne did not fail in her rôle.
“Yes, please. Can’t I give you a lift back? Have you much to do
for Sir Eustace? Dear me, I wish Anne Beddingfeld was coming with
us to-morrow. I don’t like the idea of a young girl like that
travelling off to Durban all by herself. But she was set upon it.
Some little attraction there, I fancy——”
They passed out of ear-shot. Clever Suzanne. She had saved me.
I allowed a minute or two to elapse and then I too made my way out
of the station, almost colliding as I did so with a man—an
unpleasant-looking man with a nose disproportionately big for his
face.
CHAPTER XXI
I had no further difficulty in carrying out my plans. I found a
small hotel in a back street, got a room there, paid a deposit as
I had no luggage with me, and went placidly to bed.
On the following morning I was up early and went out into the town
to purchase a modest wardrobe. My idea was to do nothing until
after the departure of the eleven-o’clock train to Rhodesia with
most of the party on board. Pagett was not likely to indulge in
any nefarious activities until he had got rid of them. Accordingly
I took a tram out of the town and proceeded to enjoy a country
walk. It was comparatively cool, and I was glad to stretch my legs
after the long voyage and my close confinement at Muizenberg.
A lot hinges on small things. My shoe-lace came untied, and I
stopped to do it up. The road had just turned a corner, and as I
was bending over the offending shoe a man came right round and
almost walked into me. He lifted his hat, murmuring an apology,
and went on. It struck me at the time that his face was vaguely
familiar, but at the moment I thought no more of it. I looked at
my wrist-watch. The time was getting on. I turned my feet in the
direction of Cape Town.
There was a tram on the point of going and I had to run for it. I
heard other footsteps running behind me. I swung myself on and so
did the other runner. I recognized him at once. It was the man who
had passed me on the road when my shoe came untied, and in a flash
I knew why his face was familiar. It was the small man with the
big nose whom I had run into on leaving the station the night
before.
The coincidence was rather startling. Could it be possible that
the man was deliberately following me? I resolved to test that as
promptly as possible. I rang the bell and got off at the next stop.
The man did not get off. I withdrew into the shadow of a shop
doorway and watched. He alighted at the next stop and walked back
in my direction.
The case was clear enough. I was being followed. I had crowed too
soon. My victory over Guy Pagett took on another aspect. I hailed
the next tram and, as I expected, my shadower also got on. I gave
myself up to some very serious thinking.
It was perfectly apparent that I had stumbled on a bigger thing
than I knew. The murder in the house at Marlow was not an isolated
incident committed by a solitary individual. I was up against a
gang, and, thanks to Colonel Race’s revelations to Suzanne, and
what I had overheard at the house at Muizenberg, I was beginning
to understand some of its manifold activities. Systematized crime,
organized by the man known to his followers as the “Colonel”! I
remembered some of the talk I had heard on board ship, of the
strike on the Rand and the causes underlying it—and the belief that
some secret organization was at work fomenting the agitation. That
was the “Colonel’s” work, his emissaries were acting according to
plan. He took no part in these things himself, I had always heard,
as he limited himself to directing and organizing. The brain-work—not
the dangerous labour—for him. But still it well might be that he
himself was on the spot, directing affairs from an apparently
impeccable position.
That, then, was the meaning of Colonel Race’s presence on the
_Kilmorden Castle._ He was out after the arch-criminal. Everything
fitted in with that assumption. He was some one high up in the
Secret Service whose business it was to lay the “Colonel” by the
heels.
I nodded to myself—things were becoming very clear to me. What of
my part in the affair? Where did I come in? Was it only diamonds
they were after? I shook my head. Great as the value of the diamonds
might be, they hardly accounted for the desperate attempts which
had been made to get me out of the way. No, I stood for more than