The Man in the Brown Suit
the fly,” remarked Sir Eustace facetiously. “My dear Rayburn, you
are extraordinarily unlucky.”
“You said I could come safely, Anne?”
“Do not reproach her, my dear fellow. That note was written at my
dictation, and the lady could not help herself. She would have been
wiser not to write it, but I did not tell her so at the time. You
followed her instructions, went to the curio-shop, were taken
through the secret passage from the back room—and found yourself
in the hands of your enemies!”
Harry looked at me. I understood his glance and edged nearer to
Sir Eustace.
“Yes,” murmured the latter, “decidedly you are not lucky! This
is—let me see, the third encounter.”
“You are right,” said Harry. “This is the third encounter. Twice
you have worsted me—have you never heard that the third time the
luck changes? This is my round—cover him, Anne.”
I was all ready. In a flash I had whipped the pistol out of my
stocking and was holding it to his head. The two men guarding Harry
sprang forward, but his voice stopped them.
“Another step—and he dies! If they come any nearer, Anne, pull the
trigger—don’t hesitate.”
“I shan’t,” I replied cheerfully. “I’m rather afraid of pulling
it, anyway.”
I think Sir Eustace shared my fears. He was certainly shaking like
a jelly.
“Stay where you are,” he commanded, and the men stopped obediently.
“Tell them to leave the room,” said Harry.
Sir Eustace gave the order. The men filed out, and Harry shot the
bolt across the door behind them.
“Now we can talk,” he observed grimly, and coming across the room,
he took the revolver out of my hand.
Sir Eustace uttered a sigh of relief and wiped his forehead with
a handkerchief.
“I’m shockingly out of condition,” he observed. “I think I must
have a weak heart. I am glad that revolver is in competent hands.
I didn’t trust Miss Anne with it. Well, my young friend, as you
say, now we can talk. I’m willing to admit that you stole a march
upon me. Where the devil that revolver came from I don’t know. I
had the girl’s luggage searched when she arrived. And where did
you produce it from now? You hadn’t got it on you a minute ago?”
“Yes, I had,” I replied. “It was in my stocking.”
“I don’t know enough about women. I ought to have studied them
more,” said Sir Eustace sadly. “I wonder if Pagett would have known
that?”
Harry rapped sharply on the table.
“Don’t play the fool. If it weren’t for your grey hairs, I’d throw
you out of the window. You damned scoundrel! Grey hairs, or no grey
hairs, I——”
He advanced a step or two, and Sir Eustace skipped nimbly behind
the table.
“The young are always so violent,” he said reproachfully. “Unable
to use their brains, they rely solely on their muscles. Let us talk
sense. For the moment you have the upper hand. But that state of
affairs cannot continue. The house is full of my men. You are
hopelessly outnumbered. Your momentary ascendency has been gained
by an accident——”
“Has it?”
Something in Harry’s voice, a grim raillery, seemed to attract Sir
Eustace’s attention. He stared at him.
“Has it?” said Harry again. “Sit down, Sir Eustace, and listen to
what I have to say.” Still covering him with the revolver, he went
on: “The cards are against you this time. To begin with, listen to
_that!”_
_That_ was a dull banging at the door below. There were shouts,
oaths, and then a sound of firing. Sir Eustace paled.
“What’s that?”
“Race—and his people. You didn’t know, did you, Sir Eustace, that
Anne had an arrangement with me by which we should know whether
communications from one to the other were genuine? Telegrams were
to be signed ‘Andy,’ letters were to have the word ‘and’ crossed
out somewhere in them. Anne knew that your telegram was a fake.
She came here of her own free will, walked deliberately into the
snare, in the hope that she might catch you in your own trap.
Before leaving Kimberley she wired both to me and to Race. Mrs.
Blair has been in communication with us ever since. I received the
letter written at your dictation, which was just what I expected.
I had already discussed the probabilities of a secret passage
leading out of the curio-shop with Race, and he had discovered the
place where the exit was situated.”
There was a screaming, tearing sound, and a heavy explosion which
shook the room.
“They’re shelling this part of the town. I must get you out of
here, Anne.”
A bright light flared up. The house opposite was on fire. Sir
Eustace had risen and was passing up and down. Harry kept him
covered with the revolver.
“So you see, Sir Eustace, the game is up. It was you yourself who
very kindly provided us with the clue of your whereabouts. Race’s
men were watching the exit of the secret passage. In spite of the
precautions you took, they were successful in following me here.”
Sir Eustace turned suddenly.
“Very clever. Very creditable. But I’ve still a word to say. If
I’ve lost the trick, so have you. You’ll never be able to bring
the murder of Nadina home to me. I was in Marlow on that day,
that’s all you’ve got against me. No one can prove that I even knew
the woman. But you knew her, you had a motive for killing her—and
your record’s against you. You’re a thief, remember, a thief.
There’s one thing you don’t know, perhaps. _I’ve got the diamonds._
And here goes——”
With an incredibly swift movement, he stooped, swung up his arm
and threw. There was a tinkle of breaking glass, as the object went
through the window and disappeared into the blazing mass opposite.
“There goes your only hope of establishing your innocence over the
Kimberley affair. And now we’ll talk. I’ll drive a bargain with
you. You’ve got me cornered. Race will find all he needs in this
house. There’s a chance for me if I can get away. I’m done for if
I stay, but so are you, young man! There’s a skylight in the next
room. A couple of minutes’ start and I shall be all right. I’ve
got one or two little arrangements all ready made. You let me out
that way, and give me a start—and I leave you a signed confession
that I killed Nadina.”
_“Yes,_ Harry,” I cried. “Yes, yes, yes!”
He turned a stern face on me.
“No, Anne, a thousand times, no. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do. It solves everything.”
“I’d never be able to look Race in the face again. I’ll take my
chance, but I’m damned if I’ll let this slippery old fox get away.
It’s no good, Anne. I won’t do it.”
Sir Eustace chuckled. He accepted defeat without the least emotion.
“Well, well,” he remarked. “You seem to have met your master, Anne.
But I can assure you both that moral rectitude does not always
pay.”
There was a crash of rending wood, and footsteps surged up the
stairs. Harry drew back the bolt. Colonel Race was the first to
enter the room. His face lit at the sight of us.
“You’re safe, Anne. I was afraid——” He turned to Sir Eustace. “I’ve
been after you for a long time, Pedler—and at last I’ve got you.”
“Everybody seems to have gone completely mad,” declared Sir Eustace
airily. “These young people have been threatening me with revolvers
and accusing me of the most shocking things. I don’t know what it’s
all about.”
“Don’t you? It means that I’ve found the ‘Colonel.’ It means that
on January 8th last you were not at Cannes, but at Marlow. It means
that when your tool, Madame Nadina, turned against you, you planned
to do away with her—and at last we shall be able to bring the crime
home to you.”
“Indeed? And from whom did you get all this interesting information?
From the man who is even now being looked for by the police? His
evidence will be very valuable.”
“We have other evidence. There is some one else who knew that
Nadina was going to meet you at the Mill House.”
Sir Eustace looked surprised. Colonel Race made a gesture with his
hand. Arthur Minks _alias_ the Rev. Edward Chichester _alias_ Miss
Pettigrew stepped forward. He was pale and nervous, but he spoke
clearly enough:
“I saw Nadina in Paris the night before she went over to England.
I was posing at the time as a Russian Count. She told me of her
purpose. I warned her, knowing what kind of man she had to deal
with, but she did not take my advice. There was a wireless message
on the table. I read it. Afterwards I thought I would have a try
for the diamonds myself. In Johannesburg, Mr. Rayburn accosted me.
He persuaded me to come over to his side.”
Sir Eustace looked at him. He said nothing, but Minks seemed
visibly to wilt.
“Rats always leaving a sinking ship,” observed Sir Eustace. “I
don’t care for rats. Sooner or later, I destroy vermin.”
“There’s just one thing I’d like to tell you, Sir Eustace,” I
remarked. “That tin you threw out of the window didn’t contain the
diamonds. It had common pebbles in it. The diamonds are in a
perfectly safe place. As a matter of fact, they’re in the big
giraffe’s stomach. Suzanne hollowed it out, put the diamonds in
with cotton wool, so that they wouldn’t rattle, and plugged it up
again.”
Sir Eustace looked at me for some time. His reply was characteristic:
“I always did hate that blinking giraffe,” he said. “It must have
been instinct.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
We were not able to return to Johannesburg that night. The shells
were coming over pretty fast, and I gathered that we were now more
or less cut off, owing to the rebels having obtained possession of
a new part of the suburbs.
Our place of refuge was a farm some twenty miles or so from
Johannesburg—right out on the veld. I was dropping with fatigue.
All the excitement and anxiety of the last two days had left me
little better than a limp rag.
I kept repeating to myself, without being able to believe it, that
our troubles were really over. Harry and I were together and we
should never be separated again. Yet all through I was conscious
of some barrier between us—a constraint on his part, the reason of
which I could not fathom.
Sir Eustace had been driven off in an opposite direction accompanied
by a strong guard. He waved his hand airily to us on departing.
I came out on to the _stoep_ early on the following morning and
looked across the veld in the direction of Johannesburg. I could
see the great dumps glistening in the pale morning sunshine, and
I could hear the low rumbling mutter of the guns. The Revolution
was not over yet.
The farmer’s wife came out and called me in to breakfast. She was
a kind, motherly soul, and I was already very fond of her. Harry
had gone out at dawn and had not yet returned, so she informed me.
Again I felt a stir of uneasiness pass over me. What was this
shadow of which I was so conscious between us?
After breakfast I sat out on the _stoep_, a book in my hand which
I did not read. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I never saw
Colonel Race ride up and dismount from his horse. It was not until
he said “Good morning, Anne,” that I became aware of his presence.
“Oh,” I said, with a flush, “it’s you.”
“Yes. May I sit down?”
He drew a chair up beside me. It was the first time we had been
alone together since that day at the Matoppos. As always, I felt
that curious mixture of fascination and fear that he never failed
to inspire in me.
“What is the news?” I asked.
“Smuts will be in Johannesburg to-morrow. I give this outbreak
three days more before it collapses utterly. In the meantime the
fighting goes on.”
“I wish,” I said, “that one could be sure that the right people
were the ones to get killed. I mean the ones who wanted to fight—not
just all the poor people who happen to live in the parts where the
fighting is going on.”
He nodded.
“I know what you mean, Anne. That’s the unfairness of war. But I’ve
other news for you.”
“Yes?”
“A confession of incompetency on my part. Pedler has managed to
escape.”
“What?”