The Man in the Brown Suit
“I shouldn’t have seen this if I’d gone last night to Durban,
should I?”
“No,” said Colonel Race, smiling. “You’d have waked up to-morrow
morning to find yourself in the Karoo, a hot, dusty desert of
stones and rocks.”
“I’m glad I changed my mind,” said Anne, sighing contentedly, and
looking round.
It was rather a wonderful sight. The great mountains all around,
through which we turned and twisted and laboured ever steadily
upwards.
“Is this the best train in the day to Rhodesia?” asked Anne
Beddingfeld.
“In the day?” laughed Race. “Why, my dear Miss Anne, there are only
three trains a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Do you
realize that you don’t arrive at the Falls until Saturday next?”
“How well we shall know each other by that time,” said Mrs. Blair
maliciously. “How long are you going to stay at the Falls, Sir
Eustace?”
“That depends,” I said cautiously.
“On what?”
“On how things go at Johannesburg. My original idea was to stay a
couple of days or so at the Falls—which I’ve never seen, though
this is my third visit to Africa—and then go on to Jo’burg and
study the conditions of things on the Rand. At home, you know, I
pose as being an authority on South African politics. But from all
I hear, Jo’burg will be a particularly unpleasant place to visit
in about a week’s time. I don’t want to study conditions in the
midst of a raging revolution.”
Race smiled in a rather superior manner.
“I think your fears are exaggerated, Sir Eustace. There will be no
great danger in Jo’burg.”
The women immediately looked at him in the “What a brave hero you
are” manner. It annoyed me intensely. I am every bit as brave as
Race—but I lack the figure. These long, lean, brown men have it
all their own way.
“I suppose you’ll be there,” I said coldly.
“Very possibly. We might travel together.”
“I’m not sure that I shan’t stay on at the Falls a bit,” I answered
non-committally. Why is Race so anxious that I should go to Jo’burg?
He’s got his eye on Anne, I believe. “What are your plans, Miss
Anne?”
“That depends,” she replied demurely, copying me.
“I thought you were my secretary,” I objected.
“Oh, but I’ve been cut out. You’ve been holding Miss Pettigrew’s
hand all the afternoon.”
“Whatever I’ve been doing, I can swear I’ve not been doing that,”
I assured her.
_Thursday night._
We have just left Kimberley. Race was made to tell the story of
the diamond robbery all over again. Why are women so excited by
anything to do with diamonds?
At last Anne Beddingfeld has shed her veil of mystery. It seems
that she’s a newspaper correspondent. She sent an immense cable
from De Aar this morning. To judge by the jabbering that went on
nearly all night in Mrs. Blair’s cabin, she must have been reading
aloud all her special articles for years to come.
It seems that all along she’s been on the track of “The Man in the
Brown Suit.” Apparently she didn’t spot him on the _Kilmorden_—in
fact, she hardly had the chance, but she’s now very busy cabling
home: “How I journeyed out with the Murderer,” and inventing highly
fictitious stories of “What he said to me,” etc. I know how these
things are done. I do them myself, in my Reminiscences when Pagett
will let me. And of course one of Nasby’s efficient staff will
brighten up the details still more, so that when it appears in the
_Daily Budget_ Rayburn won’t recognize himself.
The girl’s clever, though. All on her own, apparently, she’s
ferreted out the identity of the woman who was killed in my house.
She was a Russian dancer called Nadina. I asked Anne Beddingfeld
if she was sure of this. She replied that it was merely a
deduction—quite in the Sherlock Holmes manner. However, I gather
that she had cabled it home to Nasby as a proved fact. Women have
these intuitions—I’ve no doubt that Anne Beddingfeld is perfectly
right in her guess—but to call it a deduction is absurd.
How she ever got on the staff of the _Daily Budget_ is more than
I can imagine. But she is the kind of young woman who does these
things. Impossible to withstand her. She is full of coaxing ways
that mask an invincible determination. Look how she has got into
my private car!
I am beginning to have an inkling why. Race said something about
the police suspecting that Rayburn would make for Rhodesia. He
might just have got off by Monday’s train. They telegraphed all
along the line, I presume, and no one of his description was found,
but that says little. He’s an astute young man and he knows Africa.
He’s probably exquisitely disguised as an old Kafir woman—and the
simple police continue to look for a handsome young man with a
scar, dressed in the height of European fashion. I never did quite
swallow that scar.
Anyway, Anne Beddingfeld is on his track. She wants the glory of
discovering him for herself and the _Daily Budget._ Young women
are very cold-blooded nowadays. I hinted to her that it was an
unwomanly action. She laughed at me. She assured me that did she
run him to earth her fortune was made. Race doesn’t like it,
either, I can see. Perhaps Rayburn is on this train. If so, we may
all be murdered in our beds. I said so to Mrs. Blair—but she seemed
quite to welcome the idea, and remarked that if I were murdered it
would be really a terrific scoop for Anne! A scoop for Anne indeed!
To-morrow we shall be going through Bechuanaland. The dust will be
atrocious. Also at every station, little Kafir children come and
sell you quaint wooden animals that they carve themselves. Also
mealie bowls and baskets. I am rather afraid that Mrs. Blair may
run amok. There is a primitive charm about these toys that I feel
will appeal to her.
_Friday evening._
As I feared. Mrs. Blair and Anne have bought forty-nine wooden
animals!
CHAPTER XXIII
_(Anne’s Narrative Resumed)_
I thoroughly enjoyed the journey up to Rhodesia.
There was something new and exciting to see every day. First the
wonderful scenery of the Hex river valley, then the desolate
grandeur of the Karoo, and finally that wonderful straight stretch
of line in Bechuanaland, and the perfectly adorable toys the
natives brought to sell. Suzanne and I were nearly left behind at
each station—if you could call them stations. It seemed to me that
the train just stopped whenever it felt like it, and no sooner had
it done so than a horde of natives materialized out of the empty
landscape, holding up mealie bowls and sugar canes and fur karosses
and adorable carved wooden animals. Suzanne began at once to make
a collection of the latter. I imitated her example—most of them
cost a “tiki” (threepence) and each was different. There were
giraffes and tigers and snakes and a melancholy looking eland and
absurd little black warriors. We enjoyed ourselves enormously.
Sir Eustace tried to restrain us—but in vain. I still think it was
a miracle we were not left behind at some oasis of the line. South
African trains don’t hoot or get excited when they are going to
start off again. They just glide quietly away, and you look up from
your bargaining and run for your life.
Suzanne’s amazement at seeing me climb upon the train at Cape Town
can be imagined. We held an exhaustive survey of the situation on
the first evening out. We talked half the night.
It had become clear to me that defensive tactics must be adopted
as well as aggressive ones. Travelling with Sir Eustace Pedler and
his party, I was fairly safe. Both he and Colonel Race were powerful
protectors, and I judged that my enemies would not wish to stir up
a hornet’s nest about _my_ ears. Also, as long as I was near Sir
Eustace, I was more or less in touch with Guy Pagett—and Guy Pagett
was the heart of the mystery. I asked Suzanne whether in her
opinion it was possible that Pagett himself was the mysterious
“Colonel.” His subordinate position was, of course, against the
assumption, but it had struck me once or twice that, for all his
autocratic ways, Sir Eustace was really very much influenced by
his secretary. He was an easy-going man, and one whom an adroit
secretary might be able to twist round his little finger. The
comparative obscurity of his position might in reality be useful
to him, since he would be anxious to be well out of the limelight.
Suzanne, however, negatived these ideas very strongly. She refused
to believe that Guy Pagett was the ruling spirit. The real head—the
“Colonel”—was somewhere in the background and had probably been
already in Africa at the time of our arrival.
I agreed that there was much to be said for her view, but I was
not entirely satisfied. For in each suspicious instance Pagett had
been shown as the directing genius. It was true that his personality
seemed to lack the assurance and decision that one would expect
from a master criminal—but after all, according to Colonel Race,
it was brain work only that this mysterious leader supplied, and
creative genius is often allied to a weak and timorous physical
constitution.
“There speaks the Professor’s daughter,” interrupted Suzanne, when
I had got to this point in my argument.
“It’s true, all the same. On the other hand, Pagett may be the
Grand Vizier, so to speak, of the All Highest.” I was silent for
a minute or two, and then went on musingly: “I wish I knew how Sir
Eustace made his money!”
“Suspecting him again?”
“Suzanne, I’ve got into that state that I can’t help suspecting
somebody! I don’t really suspect him—but, after all, he _is_
Pagett’s employer, and he _did_ own the Mill House.”
“I’ve always heard that he made his money in some way he isn’t
anxious to talk about,” said Suzanne thoughtfully. “But that
doesn’t necessarily mean crime—it might be tin-tacks or hair
restorer!”
I agreed ruefully.
“I suppose,” said Suzanne doubtfully, “that we’re not barking up
the wrong tree? Being led completely astray, I mean, by assuming
Pagett’s complicity? Supposing that, after all, he is a perfectly
honest man?”
I considered that for a minute or two, then I shook my head.
“I can’t believe that.”
“After all, he has his explanations for everything.”
“Y—es, but they’re not very convincing. For instance, the night he
tried to throw me overboard on the _Kilmorden,_ he says he followed
Rayburn up on deck and Rayburn turned and knocked him down. Now we
know that’s not true.”
“No,” said Suzanne unwillingly. “But we only heard the story at
second-hand from Sir Eustace. If we’d heard it direct from Pagett
himself, it might have been different. You know how people always
get a story a little wrong when they repeat it.”
I turned the thing over in my mind.
“No,” I said at last, “I don’t see any way out. Pagett’s guilty.
You can’t get away from the fact that he tried to throw me
overboard, and everything else fits in. Why are you so persistent
in this new idea of yours?”
“Because of his face?”
“His face? But——”
“Yes, I know what you’re going to say. It’s a sinister face. That’s
just it. No man with a face like that could be really sinister. It
must be a colossal joke on the part of Nature.”
I did not believe much in Suzanne’s argument. I know a lot about
Nature in past ages. If she’s got a sense of humour, she doesn’t
show it much. Suzanne is just the sort of person who would clothe
Nature with all her own attributes.
We passed on to discuss our immediate plans. It was clear to me
that I must have some kind of standing. I couldn’t go on avoiding
explanations for ever. The solution of all my difficulties lay
ready to my hand, though I didn’t think of it for some time. The
_Daily Budget!_ My silence or my speech could no longer affect
Harry Rayburn. He was marked down as “The Man in the Brown Suit”
through no fault of mine. I could help him best by seeming to be