The Man in the Brown Suit (20 page)

Suzanne, however, negatived these ideas very strongly. She refused to believe that Guy Pagett was the ruling spirit. The real head—the “Colonel”—was somewhere in the background and had probably been already in Africa at the time of our arrival.

I agreed that there was much to be said for her view, but I was not entirely satisfied. For in each suspicious instance Pagett had been shown as the directing genius. It was true that his personality seemed to lack the assurance and decision that one would expect from a master criminal—but after all, according to Colonel Race, it was brain work only that this mysterious leader supplied, and creative genius is often allied to a weak and timorous physical constitution.

“There speaks the Professor's daughter,” interrupted Suzanne, when I had got to this point in my argument.

“It's true, all the same. On the other hand, Pagett may be the Grand Vizier, so to speak, of the All Highest.” I was silent for a minute or two, and then went on musingly: “I wish I knew how Sir Eustace made his money!”

“Suspecting him again?”

“Suzanne, I've got into that state that I can't help suspecting somebody! I don't really suspect him—but, after all, he
is
Pagett's employer, and he
did
own the Mill House.”

“I've always heard that he made his money in some way he isn't anxious to talk about,” said Suzanne thoughtfully. “But that doesn't necessarily mean crime—it might be tintacks or hair restorer!”

I agreed ruefully.

“I suppose,” said Suzanne doubtfully, “that we're not barking up the wrong tree? Being led completely astray, I mean, by assuming Pagett's complicity? Supposing that, after all, he is a perfectly honest man?”

I considered that for a minute or two, then I shook my head.

“I can't believe that.”

“After all, he has his explanations for everything.”

“Y—es, but they're not very convincing. For instance, the night he tried to throw me overboard on the
Kilmorden,
he says he followed Rayburn up on deck and Rayburn turned and knocked him down. Now we know that's not true.”

“No,” said Suzanne unwillingly. “But we only heard the story at second hand from Sir Eustace. If we'd heard it direct from Pagett himself, it might have been different. You know how people always get a story a little wrong when they repeat it.”

I turned the thing over in my mind.

“No,” I said at last, “I don't see any way out. Pagett's guilty. You can't get away from the fact that he tried to throw me overboard, and everything else fits in. Why are you so persistent in this new idea of yours?”

“Because of his face.”

“His face? But—”

“Yes, I know what you're going to say. It's a sinister face. That's just it. No man with a face like that could be really sinister. It must be a colossal joke on the part of Nature.”

I did not believe much in Suzanne's argument. I know a lot about Nature in past ages. If she's got a sense of humour, she doesn't show it much. Suzanne is just the sort of person who would clothe Nature with all her own attributes.

We passed on to discuss our immediate plans. It was clear to me that I must have some kind of standing. I couldn't go on avoiding explanations forever. The solution of all my difficulties lay ready to my hand, though I didn't think of it for some time. The
Daily Budget!
My silence or my speech could no longer affect Harry Rayburn. He was marked down as “The Man in the Brown Suit” through no fault of mine. I could help him best by seeming to be against him. The “Colonel” and his gang must have no suspicion that there existed any friendly feeling between me and the man they had elected to be the scapegoat of the murder at Marlow. As far as I knew, the woman killed was still unidentified. I would cable to Lord Nasby, suggesting that she was no other than the famous Russian dancer “Nadina” who had been delighting Paris for so long. It seemed incredible to me that she had not been identified already—but when I learnt more of the case long afterwards I saw how natural it really was.

Nadina had never been to England, during her successful career in Paris. She was unknown to London audiences. The pictures in the papers of the Marlow victim were so blurred and unrecognizable that it is small wonder no one identified them. And, on the other hand, Nadina had kept her intention of visiting England a profound secret from everyone. The day after the murder, a letter had been received by her manager purporting to be from the dancer, in which she said that she was returning to Russia on urgent private affairs and that he must deal with her broken contract as best he could.

All this, of course, I only learned afterwards. With Suzanne's full approval, I sent a long cable from De Aar. It arrived at a psychological moment (this again, of course, I learnt afterwards). The
Daily Budget
was hard up for a sensation. My guess was verified and proved to be correct and the
Daily Budget
had the scoop of its lifetime. “Victim of the Mill House Murder identified by our special reporter.” And so on. “Our reporter makes voyage with the murderer. The Man in the Brown Suit. What he is really like.”

The main facts were, of course, cabled to the South African papers, but I only read my own lengthy articles at a much later date! I received approval and full instructions by cable at Bulawayo. I was on the staff of the
Daily Budget,
and I had a private word of congratulation from Lord Nasby himself. I was definitely accredited to hunt down the murderer, and I, and only I, knew that the murderer was not Harry Rayburn! But let the world think that it was he—best so for the present.

Twenty-four

W
e arrived at Bulawayo early on Saturday morning. I was disappointed in the place. It was very hot, and I hated the hotel. Also Sir Eustace was what I can only describe as thoroughly sulky. I think it was all our wooden animals that annoyed him—especially the big giraffe. It was a colossal giraffe with an impossible neck, a mild eye and a dejected tail. It had character. It had charm. A controversy was already arising as to whom it belonged to—me or Suzanne. We had each contributed a
tiki
to its purchase. Suzanne advanced the claims of seniority and the married state, I stuck to the position that I had been the first to behold its beauty.

In the meantime, I must admit, it occupied a good deal of this three-dimensional space of ours. To carry forty-nine wooden animals, all of awkward shape, and all of extremely brittle wood, is somewhat of a problem. Two porters were laden with a bunch of animals each—and one promptly dropped a ravishing group of ostriches and broke their heads off. Warned by this, Suzanne and I carried all we could, Colonel Race helped, and I pressed the big giraffe into Sir Eustace's arms. Even the correct Miss Pettigrew did not escape, a large hippopotamus and two black warriors fell to her share. I had a feeling Miss Pettigrew didn't like me. Perhaps she fancied I was a bold hussy. Anyway, she avoided me as much as she could. And the funny thing was, her face seemed vaguely familiar to me, though I couldn't quite place it.

We reposed ourselves most of the morning, and in the afternoon we drove out to the Matopos to see Rhodes's grave. That is to say, we were to have done so, but at the last moment Sir Eustace backed out. He was very nearly in as bad a temper as the morning we arrived at Cape Town—when he bounced the peaches on the floor and they squashed! Evidently arriving early in the morning at places is bad for his temperament. He cursed the porters, he cursed the waiter at breakfast, he cursed the whole hotel management, he would doubtless have liked to curse Miss Pettigrew, who hovered around with her pencil and pad, but I don't think even Sir Eustace would have dared to curse Miss Pettigrew. She's just like the efficient secretary in a book. I only rescued our dear giraffe just in time. I feel Sir Eustace would have liked to dash him to the ground.

To return to our expedition, after Sir Eustace had backed out, Miss Pettigrew said she would remain at home in case he might want her. And at the very last minute Suzanne sent down a message to say she had a headache. So Colonel Race and I drove off alone.

He is a strange man. One doesn't notice it so much in a crowd. But when one is alone with him the sense of his personality seems really almost overpowering. He becomes more taciturn, and yet his silence seems to say more than speech might do.

It was so that day that we drove to the Matopos through the soft yellow-brown scrub. Everything seemed strangely silent—except our car, which I should think was the first Ford ever made by man! The upholstery of it was torn to ribbons and, though I know nothing about engines, even I could guess that all was not as it should be in its interior.

By and by the character of the country changed. Great boulders appeared, piled up into fantastic shapes. I felt suddenly that I had got into a primitive era. Just for a moment Neanderthal men seemed quite as real to me as they had to Papa. I turned to Colonel Race.

“There must have been giants once,” I said dreamily. “And their children were just like children are today—they played with handfuls of pebbles, piling them up and knocking them down, and the more cleverly they balanced them, the better pleased they were. If I were to give a name to this place I should call it The Country of Giant Children.”

“Perhaps you're nearer the mark than you know,” said Colonel Race gravely. “Simple, primitive, big—that is Africa.”

I nodded appreciatively.

“You love it, don't you?” I asked.

“Yes. But to live in it long—well, it makes one what you would call cruel. One comes to hold life and death very lightly.”

“Yes,” I said, thinking of Harry Rayburn. He had been like that too. “But not cruel to weak things?”

“Opinions differ as to what are and are not ‘weak things,' Miss Anne.”

There was a note of seriousness in his voice which almost startled me. I felt that I knew very little really of this man at my side.

“I meant children and dogs, I think.”

“I can truthfully say I've never been cruel to children or dogs. So you don't class women as ‘weak things?' ”

I considered.

“No, I don't think I do—though they are, I suppose. That is, they are nowadays. But Papa always said that in the beginning men and women roamed the world together, equal in strength—like lions and tigers—”

“And giraffes?” interpolated Colonel Race slyly.

I laughed. Everyone makes fun of that giraffe.

“And giraffes. They were nomadic, you see. It wasn't till they settled down in communities, and women did one kind of thing and men another, that women got weak. And of course, underneath, one is still the same—one
feels
the same, I mean—and that is why women worship physical strength in men: it's what they once had and have lost.”

“Almost ancestor worship, in fact?”

“Something of the kind.”

“And you really think that's true? That women worship strength, I mean?”

“I think it's quite true—if one's honest. You think you admire moral qualities, but when you fall in love, you revert to the primitive where the physical is all that counts. But I don't think that's the end; if you lived in primitive conditions it would be all right, but you don't—and so, in the end, the other thing wins after all. It's the things that are apparently conquered that always do win, isn't it? They win in the only way that counts. Like what the Bible says about losing your life and finding it.”

“In the end,” said Colonel Race thoughtfully, “you fall in love—and you fall out of it, is that what you mean?”

“Not exactly, but you can put it that way if you like.”

“But I don't think you've ever fallen out of love, Miss Anne?”

“No, I haven't,” I admitted frankly.

“Or fallen in love, either?”

I did not answer.

The car drew up at our destination and brought the conversation to a close. We got out and began the slow ascent to the World's View. Not for the first time, I felt a slight discomfort in Colonel Race's company. He veiled his thoughts so well behind those impenetrable black eyes. He frightened me a little. He had always frightened me. I never knew where I stood with him.

We climbed in silence till we reached the spot where Rhodes lies guarded by giant boulders. A strange eerie place, far from the haunts of men, that sings a ceaseless paean of rugged beauty.

We sat there for time in silence. Then descended once more, but diverging slightly from the path. Sometimes it was a rough scramble and once we came to a sharp slope or rock that was almost sheer.

Colonel Race went first, then turned to help me.

“Better lift you,” he said suddenly, and swung me off my feet with a quick gesture.

I felt the strength of him as he set me down and released his clasp. A man of iron, with muscles like taut steel. And again I felt afraid, especially as he did not move aside, but stood directly in front of me, staring into my face.

“What are you really doing here, Anne Beddingfeld?” he said abruptly.

“I'm a gipsy seeing the world.”

“Yes, that's true enough. The newspaper correspondent is only a pretext. You've not the soul of a journalist. You're out for your own hand—snatching at life. But that's not all.”

What was he going to make me tell him? I was afraid—afraid. I looked him full in the face. My eyes can't keep secrets like his, but they can carry the war into the enemy's country.

“What are
you
really doing here, Colonel Race?” I asked deliberately.

For a moment I thought he wasn't going to answer. He was clearly taken aback, though. At last he spoke, and his words seemed to afford him a grim amusement.

“Pursuing ambition,” he said. “Just that—pursuing ambition. You will remember, Miss Beddingfeld, that ‘by that sin fell the angels,' etc.”