The Man in the Brown Suit (30 page)

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 pacing 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 of the 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 someone 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 leave 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.”

Thirty-four

W
e 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 Matopos. 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 tomorrow. 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?”

“Yes. No one knows how he managed it. He was securely locked up for the night—in an upper-story room of one of the farms roundabouts which the Military have taken over, but this morning the room was empty and the bird had flown.”

Secretly, I was rather pleased. Never, to this day, have I been able to rid myself of a sneaking fondness for Sir Eustace. I daresay it's reprehensible, but there it is. I admired him. He was a thoroughgoing villain, I daresay—but he was a pleasant one. I've never met anyone half so amusing since.

I concealed my feelings, of course. Naturally Colonel Race would feel quite differently about it. He wanted Sir Eustace brought to justice. There was nothing very surprising in his escape when one came to think of it. All round Jo'burg he must have innumerable spies and agents. And, whatever Colonel Race might think, I was exceedingly doubtful that they would ever catch him. He probably had a well-planned line of retreat. Indeed, he had said as much to us.

I expressed myself suitably, though in a rather lukewarm manner, and the conversation languished. Then Colonel Race asked suddenly for Harry. I told him that he had gone off at dawn and that I hadn't seen him this morning.

“You understand, don't you, Anne, that apart from formalities, he is completely cleared? There are technicalities, of course, but Sir Eustace's guilt is well-assured. There is nothing now to keep you apart.”

He said this without looking at me, in a slow, jerky voice.

“I understand,” I said gratefully.

“And there is no reason why he should not at once resume his real name.”

“No, of course not.”

“You know his real name?”

The question surprised me.

“Of course I do. Harry Lucas.”

He did not answer, and something in the quality of his silence struck me as peculiar.

“Anne, do you remember that, as we drove home from the Matopos that day, I told you that I knew what I had to do?”

“Of course I remember.”

“I think that I may fairly say I have done it. The man you love is cleared of suspicion.”

“Was that what you meant?”

“Of course.”

I hung my head, ashamed of the baseless suspicion I had entertained. He spoke again in a thoughtful voice:

“When I was a mere youngster, I was in love with a girl who jilted me. After that I thought only of my work. My career meant everything to me. Then I met you, Anne—and all that seemed worth nothing. But youth calls to youth . . . I've still got my work.”

I was silent. I suppose one can't really love two men at once—but you can feel like it. The magnetism of this man was very great. I looked up at him suddenly.

“I think that you'll go very far,” I said dreamily. “I think that you've got a great career ahead of you. You'll be one of the world's big men.”

I felt as though I was uttering a prophecy.

“I shall be alone, though.”

“All the people who do really big things are.”

“You think so?”

“I'm sure of it.”

He took my hand, and said in a low voice:

“I'd rather have had—the other.”

Then Harry came striding round the corner of the house. Colonel Race rose.

“Good morning—Lucas,” he said.

For some reason Harry flushed up to the roots of his hair.

“Yes,” I said gaily, “you must be known by your real name now.”

But Harry was still staring at Colonel Race.

“So you know, sir,” he said at last.

“I never forget a face. I saw you once as a boy.”

“What's all this about?” I asked, puzzled, looking from one to the other.

It seemed a conflict of wills between them. Race won. Harry turned slightly away.

“I suppose you're right, sir. Tell her my real name.”

“Anne, this isn't Harry Lucas. Harry Lucas was killed in the War. This is John Harold Eardsley.”

Thirty-five

W
ith his last words, Colonel Race had swung away and left us. I stood staring after him. Harry's voice recalled me to myself.

“Anne, forgive me, say you forgive me.”

He took my hand in his and almost mechanically I drew it away.

“Why did you deceive me?”

“I don't know that I can make you understand. I was afraid of all that sort of thing—the power and fascination of wealth. I wanted you to care for me just for myself—for the man I was—without ornaments and trappings.”

“You mean you didn't trust me?”

“You can put it that way if you like, but it isn't quite true. I'd become embittered, suspicious—always prone to look for ulterior motives—and it was so wonderful to be cared for in the way you cared for me.”

“I see,” I said slowly. I was going over in my own mind the story he had told me. For the first time I noted discrepancies in it which I had disregarded—an assurance of money, the power to buy back the diamonds of Nadina, the way in which he had preferred to speak of both men from the point of view of an outsider. And when he had said “my friend” he had meant not Eardsley, but Lucas. It was Lucas, the quiet fellow, who had loved Nadina so deeply.

“How did it come about?” I asked.

“We were both reckless—anxious to get killed. One night we exchanged identification discs—for luck! Lucas was killed the next day—blown to pieces.”

I shuddered.

“But why didn't you tell me now? This morning? You couldn't have doubted my caring for you by this time?”

“Anne, I didn't want to spoil it all. I wanted to take you back to the island. What's the good of money? It can't buy happiness. We'd have been happy on the island. I tell you I'm afraid of that other life—it nearly rotted me through once.”

“Did Sir Eustace know who you really were?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And Carton?”

“No. He saw us both with Nadina at Kimberley one night, but he didn't know which was which. He accepted my statement that I was Lucas, and Nadina was deceived by his cable. She was never afraid of Lucas. He was a quiet chap—very deep. But I always had the devil's own temper. She'd have been scared out of her life if she'd known that I'd come to life again.”