The Man in the Brown Suit (19 page)

“Hullo, Miss Anne,” cried Colonel Race, “where have you turned up from? I thought you'd gone to Durban. What an unexpected person you are!”

Suzanne said nothing, but her eyes asked a hundred questions.

“I must report myself to my chief,” I said demurely. “Where is he?”

“He's in the office—middle compartment—dictating at an incredible rate to the unfortunate Miss Pettigrew.”

“This enthusiasm for work is something new,” I commented.

“H'm!” said Colonel Race. “His idea is, I think, to give her sufficient work to chain her to her typewriter in her own compartment for the rest of the day.”

I laughed. Then, followed by the other two, I sought out Sir Eustace. He was striding up and down the circumscribed space, hurling a flood of words at the unfortunate secretary whom I now saw for the first time. A tall, square woman in drab clothing, with pince-nez and an efficient air. I judged that she was finding it difficult to keep pace with Sir Eustace, for her pencil was flying along, and she was frowning horribly.

I stepped into the compartment.

“Come aboard, sir,” I said saucily.

Sir Eustace paused dead in the middle of a complicated sentence on the labour situation, and stared at me. Miss Pettigrew must be a nervous creature, in spite of her efficient air, for she jumped as though she had been shot.

“God bless my soul!” ejaculated Sir Eustace. “What about the young man in Durban?”

“I prefer you,” I said softly.

“Darling,” said Sir Eustace. “You can start holding my hand at once.”

Miss Pettigrew coughed, and Sir Eustace hastily withdrew his hand.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Let me see, where were we? Yes. Tylman Roos, in his speech at—What's the matter? Why aren't you taking it down?”

“I think,” said Colonel Race gently, “that Miss Pettigrew has broken her pencil.”

He took it from her and sharpened it. Sir Eustace stared, and so did I. There was something in Colonel Race's tone that I did not quite understand.

Twenty-two

(Extract from the diary of Sir Eustace Pedler)

I am inclined to abandon my Reminiscences. Instead, I shall write a short article entitled “Secretaries I have had.” As regards secretaries, I seem to have fallen under a blight. At one minute I have no secretaries, at another I have too many. At the present minute I am journeying to Rhodesia with a pack of women. Race goes off with the two best-looking, of course, and leaves me with the dud. That is what always happens to me—and, after all, this is my private car, not Race's.

Also Anne Beddingfeld is accompanying me to Rhodesia on the pretext of being my temporary secretary. But all this afternoon she has been out on the observation platform with Race exclaiming at the beauty of the Hex River Pass. It is true that I told her her principal duty would be to hold my hand. But she isn't even doing that. Perhaps she is afraid of Miss Pettigrew. I don't blame her if so. There is nothing attractive about Miss Pettigrew—she is a repellent female with large feet, more like a man than a woman.

There is something very mysterious about Anne Beddingfeld. She jumped onboard the train at the last minute, puffing like a steam engine, for all the world as though she's been running a race—and yet Pagett told me that he'd seen her off to Durban last night! Either Pagett has been drinking again, or else the girl must have an astral body.

And she never explains. Nobody ever explains. Yes, “Secretaries I have had.” No. 1, a murderer fleeing from justice. No. 2, a secret drinker who carries on disreputable intrigues in Italy. No. 3, a beautiful girl who possesses the useful faculty of being in two places at once. No. 4, Miss Pettigrew, who, I have no doubt, is really a particularly dangerous crook in disguise! Probably one of Pagett's Italian friends that he has palmed off on me. I shouldn't wonder if the world found some day that it had been grossly deceived by Pagett. On the whole, I think Rayburn was the best of the bunch. He never worried me or got in my way. Guy Pagett has had the impertinence to have the stationery trunk put in here. None of us can move without falling over it.

I went out on the observation platform just now, expecting my appearance to be greeted with hails of delight. Both the women were listening spellbound to one of Race's traveller's tales. I shall label this car—not “Sir Eustace Pedler and Party,” but “Colonel Race and Harem.”

Then Mrs. Blair must needs begin taking silly photographs. Every time we went round a particularly appalling curve, as we climbed higher and higher, she snapped at the engine.

“You see the point,” she cried delightedly. “It must be some curve if you can photograph the front part of the train from the back, and with the mountain background it will look awfully dangerous.”

I pointed out to her that no one could possibly tell it had been taken from the back of the train. She looked at me pityingly.

“I shall write underneath it. ‘Taken from the train. Engine going round a curve.' ”

“You could write that under any snapshot of a train,” I said. Women never think of these simple things.

“I'm glad we've come up here in daylight,” cried Anne Beddingfeld. “I shouldn't have seen this if I'd gone last night to Durban, should I?”

“No,” said Colonel Race, smiling. “You'd have woken up tomorrow 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 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 noncommittally. 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!

Tomorrow 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!

Twenty-three

(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 Bechaunaland, 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.