The Man in the Brown Suit (31 page)

“Harry, if Colonel Race hadn't told me, what did you mean to do?”

“Say nothing. Go on as Lucas.”

“And your father's millions?”

“Race was welcome to them. Anyway, he would make a better use of them than I ever shall. Anne, what are you thinking about? You're frowning so.”

“I'm thinking,” I said slowly, “that I almost wish Colonel Race hadn't made you tell me.”

“No. He was right. I owed you the truth.”

He paused, then said suddenly:

“You know, Anne, I'm jealous of Race. He loves you too—and he's a bigger man than I am or ever shall be.”

I turned to him, laughing.

“Harry, you idiot. It's you I want—and that's all that matters.”

As soon as possible we started for Cape Town. There Suzanne was waiting to greet me, and we disembowelled the big giraffe together. When the Revolution was finally quelled, Colonel Race came down to Cape Town and at his suggestion the big villa at Muizenberg that had belonged to Sir Laurence Eardsley was reopened and we all took up our abode in it.

There we made our plans. I was to return to England with Suzanne and to be married from her house in London. And the trousseau was to be bought in Paris! Suzanne enjoyed planning all these details enormously. So did I. And yet the future seemed curiously unreal. And sometimes, without knowing why, I felt absolutely stifled—as though I couldn't breathe.

It was the night before we were to sail. I couldn't sleep. I was miserable, and I didn't know why. I hated leaving Africa. When I came back to it, would it be the same thing? Would it ever be the same thing again?

And then I was startled by an authoritative rap on the shutter. I sprang up. Harry was on the
stoep
outside.

“Put some clothes on, Anne, and come out. I want to speak to you.”

I huddled on a few garments, and stepped out into the cool night air—still and scented, with its velvety feel. Harry beckoned me out of earshot of the house. His face looked pale and determined and his eyes were blazing.

“Anne, do you remember saying to me once that women enjoyed doing things they disliked for the sake of someone they liked?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering what was coming.

He caught me in his arms.

“Anne, come away with me—now—tonight. Back to Rhodesia—back to the island. I can't stand all this tomfoolery. I can't wait for you any longer.”

I disengaged myself a minute.

“And what about my French frocks?” I lamented mockingly.

To this day, Harry never knows when I'm in earnest, and when I'm only teasing him.

“Damn your French frocks. Do you think I want to put frocks on you? I'm a damned sight more likely to want to tear them off you. I'm not going to let you go, do you hear? You're my woman. If I let you go away, I may lose you. I'm never sure of you. You're coming with me now—tonight—and damn everybody.”

He held me to him, kissing me until I could hardly breathe.

“I can't do without you any longer, Anne. I can't indeed. I hate all this money. Let Race have it. Come on. Let's go.”

“My toothbrush?” I demurred.

“You can buy one. I know I'm a lunatic, but for God's sake,
come!
”

He stalked off at a furious pace. I followed him as meekly as the Barotsi woman I had observed at the Falls. Only I wasn't carrying a frying pan on my head. He walked so fast that it was very difficult to keep up with him.

“Harry,” I said at last, in a meek voice, “are we going to walk all the way to Rhodesia?”

He turned suddenly, and with a great shout of laughter gathered me up in his arms.

“I'm mad, sweetheart, I know it. But I do love you so.”

“We're a couple of lunatics. And, oh, Harry, you never asked me, but I'm not making a sacrifice at all! I
wanted
to come!”

Thirty-six

T
hat was two years ago. We still live on the island. Before me, on the rough wooden table, is the letter that Suzanne wrote me.

Dear Babes in the Wood—Dear Lunatics in Love,

I'm not surprised—not at all. All the time we've been talking Paris and frocks I felt that it wasn't a bit real—that you'd vanish into the blue some day to be married over the tongs in the good old gipsy fashion. But you
are
a couple of lunatics! This idea of renouncing a vast fortune is absurd. Colonel Race wanted to argue the matter, but I have persuaded him to leave the argument to time. He can administer the estate for Harry—and none better. Because, after all, honeymoons don't last forever—you're not here, Anne, so I can safely say that without having you fly out at me like a little wildcat—Love in the wilderness will last a good while, but one day you will suddenly begin to dream of houses in Park Lane, sumptuous furs, Paris frocks, the largest thing in motors and the latest thing in perambulators, French maids and Norland nurses! Oh, yes, you will!

But have your honeymoon, dear lunatics, and let it be a long one. And think of me sometimes, comfortably putting on weight amidst the fleshpots!

Your loving friend,

Suzanne Blair

P
.
S
.—I am sending you an assortment of frying pans as a wedding present, and an enormous
terrine
of
pâté de foie gras
to remind you of me.

There is another letter that I sometimes read. It came a good while after the other and was accompanied by a bulky parcel. It appeared to be written from somewhere in Bolivia.

My dear Anne Beddingfeld,

I can't resist writing to you, not so much for the pleasure it gives me to write, as for the enormous pleasure I know it will give you to hear from me. Our friend Race wasn't quite as clever as he thought himself, was he?

I think I shall appoint you my literary executor. I'm sending you my diary. There's nothing in it that would interest Race and his crowd, but I fancy that there are passages in it which may amuse you. Make use of it in any way you like. I suggest an article for the
Daily Budget
, “Criminals I have met.” I only stipulate that I shall be the central figure.

By this time I have no doubt that you are no longer Anne Beddingfeld, but Lady Eardsley, queening it in Park Lane. I should just like to say that I bear you no malice whatever. It is hard, of course, to have to begin all over again at my time of life, but,
entre nous
, I had a little reserve fund carefully put aside for such a contingency. It has come in very usefully and I am getting together a nice little connexion. By the way, if you ever come across that funny friend of yours, Arthur Minks, just tell him that I haven't forgotten him, will you? That will give him a nasty jar.

On the whole I think I have displayed a most Christian and forgiving spirit. Even to Pagett. I happened to hear that he—or rather Mrs. Pagett—had brought a sixth child into the world the other day. England will be entirely populated by Pagetts soon. I sent the child a silver mug, and, on a postcard, declared my willingness to act as godfather. I can see Pagett taking both mug and postcard straight to Scotland Yard without a smile on his face!

Bless you, liquid eyes. Some day you will see what a mistake you have made in not marrying me.

Yours ever

Eustace Pedler

Harry was furious. It is the one point on which he and I do not see eye to eye. To him, Sir Eustace was the man who tried to murder me and whom he regards as responsible for the death of his friend. Sir Eustace's attempts on my life have always puzzled me. They are not in the picture, so to speak. For I am sure that he always had a genuinely kindly feeling towards me.

Then why did he twice attempt to take my life? Harry says “because he's a damned scoundrel,” and seems to think that settles the matter. Suzanne was more discriminating. I talked it over with her, and she put it down to a “fear complex.” Suzanne goes in rather for psychoanalysis. She pointed out to me that Sir Eustace's whole life was actuated by a desire to be safe and comfortable. He had an acute sense of self-preservation. And the murder of Nadina removed certain inhibitions. His actions did not represent the state of his feeling towards me, but were the result of his acute fears for his own safety. I think Suzanne is right. As for Nadina, she was the kind of woman who deserved to die. Men do all sorts of questionable things in order to get rich, but women shouldn't pretend to be in love when they aren't for ulterior motives.

I can forgive Sir Eustace easily enough, but I shall never forgive Nadina. Never, never, never!

The other day I was unpacking some tins that were wrapped in bits of an old
Daily Budget,
and I suddenly came upon the words, “The Man in the Brown Suit.” How long ago it seemed! I had, of course, severed my connexion with the
Daily Budget
long ago—I had done with it sooner than it had done with me.
MY
ROMANTIC
WEDDING
was given a halo of publicity.

My son is lying in the sun, kicking his legs. There's a “man in a brown suit” if you like. He's wearing as little as possible, which is the best costume for Africa, and is as brown as a berry. He's always burrowing in the earth. I think he takes after Papa. He'll have that same mania for Pleistocene clay.

Suzanne sent me a cable when he was born:

“Congratulations and love to the latest arrival on Lunatics' Island. Is his head dolichocephalic or brachycephalic?”

I wasn't going to stand that from Suzanne. I sent her a reply of one word, economical and to the point:

“Platycephalic!”

About the Author

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel
The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
With
The Murder in the Vicarage,
published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

Many of Christie's novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series.
The Mousetrap,
her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are
Murder on the Orient Express
(1974) and
Death on the Nile
(1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain's highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

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The Agatha Christie Collection

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Secret of Chimneys

The Seven Dials Mystery

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Sittaford Mystery

Parker Pyne Investigates

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

Murder Is Easy

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

And Then There Were None

Towards Zero

Death Comes as the End

Sparkling Cyanide

The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Crooked House

Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

They Came to Baghdad

Destination Unknown

Ordeal by Innocence

Double Sin and Other Stories

The Pale Horse

Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

Endless Night

Passenger to Frankfurt

The Golden Ball and Other Stories

The Mousetrap and Other Plays

The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

The Hercule Poirot Mysteries

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Murder on the Links

Poirot Investigates

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Big Four

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Peril at End House

Lord Edgware Dies

Murder on the Orient Express

Three Act Tragedy

Death in the Clouds

The A.B.C. Murders

Murder in Mesopotamia

Cards on the Table

Murder in the Mews

Dumb Witness

Death on the Nile

Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirot's Christmas

Sad Cypress

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Evil Under the Sun

Five Little Pigs

The Hollow

The Labors of Hercules

Taken at the Flood

The Under Dog and Other Stories

Mrs. McGinty's Dead

After the Funeral

Hickory Dickory Dock

Dead Man's Folly