The Man in the Brown Suit
Without conscious hypocrisy, I found myself assuming the demeanour
of a bereaved orphan. He hypnotized me into it. He was benignant,
kind and fatherly—and without the least doubt he regarded me as a
perfect fool of a girl left adrift to face an unkind world. From
the first I felt that it was quite useless to try to convince him
of the contrary. As things turned out, perhaps it was just as well
I didn’t.
“My dear child, do you think you can listen to me whilst I try to
make a few things clear to you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Your father, as you know, was a very great man. Posterity will
appreciate him. But he was not a good man of business.”
I knew that quite as well, if not better than Mr. Flemming, but I
restrained myself from saying so. He continued:
“I do not suppose you understand much of these matters. I will try
to explain as clearly as I can.”
He explained at unnecessary length. The upshot seemed to be that
I was left to face life with the sum of £87, 17s. 4d. It seemed a
strangely unsatisfying amount. I waited in some trepidation for
what was coming next. I feared that Mr. Flemming would be sure to
have an aunt in Scotland who was in want of a bright young
companion. Apparently, however, he hadn’t.
“The question is,” he went on, “the future. I understand you have
no living relatives?”
“I’m alone in the world,” I said, and was struck anew by my likeness
to a film heroine.
“You have friends?”
“Every one has been very kind to me,” I said gratefully.
“Who would not be kind to one so young and charming?” said Mr.
Flemming gallantly. “Well, well, my dear, we must see what can be
done.” He hesitated a minute, and then said: “Supposing—how would
it be if you came to us for a time?”
I jumped at the chance. London! The place for things to happen.
“It’s awfully kind of you,” I said. “Might I really? Just while
I’m looking round. I must start out to earn my living, you know?”
“Yes, yes, my dear child. I quite understand. We will look round
for something—suitable.”
I felt instinctively that Mr. Flemming’s ideas of “something
suitable” and mine were likely to be widely divergent, but it was
certainly not the moment to air my views.
“That is settled then. Why not return with me to-day?”
“Oh, thank you, but will Mrs. Flemming——”
“My wife will be delighted to welcome you.”
I wonder if husbands know as much about their wives as they think
they do. If I had a husband, I should hate him to bring home
orphans without consulting me first.
“We will send her a wire from the station,” continued the lawyer.
My few personal belongings were soon packed. I contemplated my hat
sadly before putting it on. It had originally been what I call a
“Mary” hat, meaning by that the kind of hat a housemaid ought to
wear on her day out—but doesn’t! A limp thing of black straw with
a suitably depressed brim. With the inspiration of genius, I had
kicked it once, punched it twice, dented in the crown and affixed
to it a thing like a cubist’s dream of a jazz carrot. The result
had been distinctly chic. The carrot I had already removed, of
course, and now I proceeded to undo the rest of my handiwork. The
“Mary” hat resumed its former status with an additional battered
appearance which made it even more depressing than formerly. I
might as well look as much like the popular conception of an orphan
as possible. I was just a shade nervous of Mrs. Flemming’s
reception, but hoped my appearance might have a sufficiently
disarming effect.
Mr. Flemming was nervous too. I realized that as we went up the
stairs of the tall house in a quiet Kensington Square. Mrs. Flemming
greeted me pleasantly enough. She was a stout, placid woman of the
“good wife and mother” type. She took me up to a spotless
chintz-hung bedroom, hoped I had everything I wanted, informed me
that tea would be ready in about a quarter of an hour, and left me
to my own devices.
I heard her voice, slightly raised, as she entered the drawing-room
below on the first floor.
“Well, Henry, why on earth——” I lost the rest, but the acerbity of
the tone was evident. And a few minutes later another phrase
floated up to me, in an even more acid voice:
“I agree with you! She is certainly _very_ good-looking.”
It is really a very hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you
are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.
With a deep sigh I proceeded to do things to my hair. I have nice
hair. It is black—a real black, not dark brown, and it grows well
back from my forehead and down over the ears. With a ruthless hand
I dragged it upwards. As ears, my ears are quite all right, but
there is no doubt about it, ears are _démodé_ nowadays. They are
like the “Queen of Spain’s legs” in Professor Peterson’s young day.
When I had finished I looked almost unbelievably like the kind of
orphan that walks out in a queue with a little bonnet and a red
cloak.
I noticed when I went down that Mrs. Flemming’s eyes rested on my
exposed ears with quite a kindly glance. Mr. Flemming seemed
puzzled. I had no doubt that he was saying to himself, “What _has_
the child done to herself?”
On the whole the rest of the day passed off well. It was settled
that I was to start at once to look for something to do.
When I went to bed, I stared earnestly at my face in the glass.
Was I really good-looking? Honestly, I couldn’t say I thought so!
I hadn’t got a straight Grecian nose, or a rosebud mouth, or any
of the things you ought to have. It is true that a curate once told
me that my eyes were like “imprisoned sunshine in a dark, dark
wood”—but curates always know so many quotations, and fire them
off at random. I’d much prefer to have Irish blue eyes than dark
green ones with yellow flecks! Still, green is a good colour for
adventuresses.
I wound a black garment tightly round me, leaving my arms and
shoulders bare. Then I brushed back my hair and pulled it well down
over my ears again. I put a lot of powder on my face, so that the
skin seemed even whiter than usual. I fished about until I found
some old lip-salve, and I put oceans of it on my lips. Then I did
under my eyes with burnt cork. Finally, I draped a red ribbon over
my bare shoulder, stuck a scarlet feather in my hair, and placed
a cigarette in one corner of my mouth. The whole effect pleased me
very much.
“Anna the Adventuress,” I said aloud, nodding at my reflection.
“Anna the Adventuress. Episode I, ‘The House in Kensington’!”
Girls are foolish things.
CHAPTER III
In the succeeding weeks I was a good deal bored.
Mrs. Flemming and her friends seemed to me to be supremely
uninteresting. They talked for hours of themselves and their
children and of the difficulties of getting good milk for the
children and of what they said to the Dairy when the milk wasn’t
good. Then they would go on to servants, and the difficulties of
getting good servants and of what they had said to the woman at
the Registry Office and of what the woman at the Registry Office
had said to them. They never seemed to read the papers or to care
about what went on in the world. They disliked travelling—everything
was so different to England. The Riviera was all right, of course,
because one met all one’s friends there.
I listened and contained myself with difficulty. Most of these
women were rich. The whole wide beautiful world was theirs to
wander in and they deliberately stayed in dirty dull London and
talked about milkmen and servants! I think now, looking back, that
I was perhaps a shade intolerant. But they _were_ stupid—stupid
even at their chosen job: most of them kept the most extraordinarily
inadequate and muddled housekeeping accounts.
My affairs did not progress very fast. The house and furniture had
been sold, and the amount realized had just covered our debts. As
yet, I had not been successful in finding a post. Not that I really
wanted one! I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking
for adventure, adventure would meet me halfway. It is a theory of
mine that one always gets what one wants. My theory was about to
be proved in practice.
It was early in January—the 8th, to be exact. I was returning from
an unsuccessful interview with a lady who said she wanted a
secretary-companion, but really seemed to require a strong charwoman
who would work twelve hours a day for £25 a year. Having parted
with mutual veiled impolitenesses, I walked down Edgware Road (the
interview had taken place in a house in St. John’s Wood) and across
Hyde Park to St. George’s Hospital. There I entered Hyde Park
Corner Tube Station and took a ticket to Gloucester Road.
Once on the platform I walked to the extreme end of it. My inquiring
mind wished to satisfy itself as to whether there really _were_
points and an opening between the two tunnels just beyond the
station in the direction of Down Street. I was foolishly pleased
to find I was right. There were not many people on the platform,
and at the extreme end there was only myself and one man. As I
passed him, I sniffed dubiously. If there is one smell I cannot
bear it is that of moth balls! This man’s heavy overcoat simply
reeked of them. And yet most men begin to wear their winter
overcoats before January, and consequently by this time the smell
ought to have worn off. The man was beyond me, standing close to
the edge of the tunnel. He seemed lost in thought, and I was able
to stare at him without rudeness. He was a small thin man, very
brown of face, with light blue eyes and a small dark beard.
“Just come from abroad,” I deduced. “That’s why his overcoat smells
so. He’s come from India. Not an officer, or he wouldn’t have a
beard. Perhaps a tea-planter.”
At this moment the man turned as though to retrace his steps along
the platform. He glanced at me and then his eyes went on to
something behind me, and his face changed. It was distorted by
fear—almost panic. He stood a step backwards as though involuntarily
recoiling from some danger, forgetting that he was standing on the
extreme edge of the platform, and went down and over.
There was a vivid flash from the rails and a crackling sound. I
shrieked. People came running up. Two station officials seemed to
materialize from nowhere and took command.
I remained where I was, rooted to the spot by a sort of horrible
fascination. Part of me was appalled at the sudden disaster, and
another part of me was coolly and dispassionately interested in
the methods employed for lifting the man off the live rail and back
onto the platform.
“Let me pass, please. I am a medical man.”
A tall man with a brown beard pressed past me and bent over the
motionless body.
As he examined it, a curious sense of unreality seemed to possess
me. The thing wasn’t real—couldn’t be. Finally, the doctor stood
upright and shook his head.
“Dead as a door-nail. Nothing to be done.”
We had all crowded nearer, and an aggrieved porter raised his
voice.
“Now then, stand back there, will you? What’s the sense in crowding
round.”
A sudden nausea seized me, and I turned blindly and ran up the
stairs again towards the lift. I felt that it was too horrible. I
must get out into the open air. The doctor who had examined the
body was just ahead of me. The lift was just about to go up,
another having descended, and he broke into a run. As he did so,
he dropped a piece of paper.
I stopped, picked it up, and ran after him. But the lift gates
clanged in my face, and I was left holding the paper in my hand.
By the time the second lift reached the street level, there was no
sign of my quarry. I hoped it was nothing important that he had
lost, and for the first time I examined it.
It was a plain half-sheet of notepaper with some figures and words
scrawled upon it in pencil. This is a facsimile of it: