The Man in the Brown Suit (3 page)

“My poor child,” he said. “My poor, poor child.”

Without conscious hypocrisy, I found myself assuming the demeanour of a bereaved orphan. He hypnotized me into it. He was benignant, kind and fatherly—and without the least doubt he regarded me as a perfect fool of a girl left adrift to face an unkind world. From the first I felt that it was quite useless to try to convince him of the contrary. As things turned out, perhaps it was just as well I didn't.

“My dear child, do you think you can listen to me whilst I try to make a few things clear to you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Your father, as you know, was a very great man. Posterity will appreciate him. But he was not a good man of business.”

I knew that quite as well, if not better than Mr. Flemming, but I restrained myself from saying so. He continued: “I do not suppose you understand much of these matters. I will try to explain as clearly as I can.”

He explained at unnecessary length. The upshot seemed to be that I was left to face life with the sum of £87 17
s
. 4
d
. It seemed a strangely unsatisfying amount. I waited in some trepidation for what was coming next. I feared that Mr. Flemming would be sure to have an aunt in Scotland who was in want of a bright young companion. Apparently, however, he hadn't.

“The question is,” he went on, “the future. I understand you have no living relatives?”

“I'm alone in the world,” I said, and was struck anew by my likeness to a film heroine.

“You have friends?”

“Everyone has been very kind to me,” I said gratefully.

“Who would not be kind to one so young and charming?” said Mr. Flemming gallantly. “Well, well, my dear, we must see what can be done.” He hesitated a minute, and then said: “Supposing—how would it be if you came to us for a time?”

I jumped at the chance. London! The place for things to happen.

“It's awfully kind of you,” I said. “Might I really? Just while I'm looking around. I must start out to earn my living, you know?”

“Yes, yes, my dear child. I quite understand. We will look round for something—suitable.”

I felt instictively that Mr. Flemming's ideas of “something suitable” and mine were likely to be widely divergent, but it was certainly not the moment to air my views.

“That is settled then. Why not return with me today?”

“Oh, thank you, but will Mrs. Flemming—”

“My wife will be delighted to welcome you.”

I wonder if husbands know as much about their wives as they think they do. If I had a husband, I should hate him to bring home orphans without consulting me first.

“We will send her a wire from the station,” continued the lawyer.

My few personal belongings were soon packed. I contemplated my hat sadly before putting it on. It had originally been what I call a “Mary” hat, meaning by that the kind of hat a housemaid ought to wear on her day out—but doesn't! A limp thing of black straw with a suitably depressed brim. With the inspiration of genius, I had kicked it once, punched it twice, dented in the crown and affixed to it a thing like a cubist's dream of a jazz carrot. The result had been distinctly chic. The carrot I had already removed, of course, and now I proceeded to undo the rest of my handiwork. The “Mary” hat resumed its former status with an additional battered appearance which made it even more depressing than formerly. I might as well look as much like the popular conception of an orphan as possible. I was just a shade nervous of Mrs. Flemming's reception, but hoped my appearance might have a sufficiently disarming effect.

Mr. Flemming was nervous too. I realized that as we went up the stairs of the tall house in a quiet Kensington square. Mrs. Flemming greeted me pleasantly enough. She was a stout, placid woman of the “good wife and mother” type. She took me up to a spotless chintz-hung bedroom, hoped I had everything I wanted, informed me that tea would be ready in about a quarter of an hour, and left me to my own devices.

I heard her voice slightly raised, as she entered the drawing room below on the first floor.

“Well, Henry, why on earth—” I lost the rest, but the acerbity of the tone was evident. And a few minutes later another phrase floated up to me, in an even more acid voice: “I agree with you! She is certainly
very
good-looking.”

It is really a very hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.

With a deep sigh I proceeded to do things with my hair. I have nice hair. It is black—a real black, not dark brown—and it grows well back from my forehead and down over the ears. With a ruthless hand I dragged it upwards. As ears, my ears are quite all right, but there is no doubt about it, ears are
démodé
nowadays. They are quite like the “Queen of Spain's legs” in Professor Peterson's young day. When I had finished I looked almost unbelievably like the kind of orphan that walks out in a queue with a little bonnet and red cloak.

I noticed when I went down that Mrs. Flemming's eyes rested on my exposed ears with quite a kindly glance. Mr. Flemming seemed puzzled. I had no doubt that he was saying to himself, “What
has
the child done to herself ?”

On the whole the rest of the day passed off well. It was settled that I was to start at once to look for something to do.

When I went to bed, I stared earnestly at my face in the glass. Was I really good-looking? Honestly I couldn't say I thought so! I hadn't got a straight Grecian nose, or a rosebud mouth, or any of the things you ought to have. It is true that a curate once told me that my eyes were like “imprisoned sunshine in a dark, dark wood”—but curates always know so many quotations, and fire them off at random. I'd much prefer to have Irish blue eyes than dark green ones with yellow flecks! Still, green is a good colour for adventuresses.

I wound a black garment tightly round me, leaving my arms and shoulders bare. Then I brushed back my hair and pulled it well down over my ears again. I put a lot of powder on my face, so that the skin seemed even whiter than usual. I fished about until I found some lip salve, and I put oceans of it on my lips. Then I did under my eyes with burnt cork. Finally I draped a red ribbon over my bare shoulder, stuck a scarlet feather in my hair, and placed a cigarette in one corner of my mouth. The whole effect pleased me very much.

“Anna the Adventuress,” I said aloud, nodding at my reflection. “Anna the Adventuress. Episode I, ‘The House in Kensington!' ”

Girls are foolish things.

Three

I
n the succeeding weeks I was a good deal bored. Mrs. Flemming and her friends seemed to me to be supremely uninteresting. They talked for hours of themselves and their children and of the difficulties of getting good milk for the children and of what they say to the dairy when the milk wasn't good. Then they would go on to the servants, and the difficulties of getting good servants and of what they had said to the woman at the registry office and of what the woman at the registry office had said to them. They never seemed to read the papers or to care about what went on in the world. They disliked travelling—everything was so different to England. The Riviera was all right, of course, because one met all one's friends there.

I listened and contained myself with difficulty. Most of these women were rich. The whole wide beautiful world was theirs to wander in and they deliberately stayed in dirty dull London and talked about milkmen and servants! I think now, looking back, that I was perhaps a shade intolerant. But they
were
stupid—stupid even at their chosen job: most of them kept the most extraordinarily inadequate and muddled housekeeping accounts.

My affairs did not progress very fast. The house and furniture had been sold, and the amount realized had just covered our debts. As yet, I had not been successful in finding a post. Not that I really wanted one! I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking for adventure, adventure would meet me half way. It is a theory of mine that one always gets what one wants.

My theory was about to be proved in practice.

It was early in January—the 8th, to be exact. I was returning from an unsuccessful interview with a lady who said she wanted a secretary-companion, but really seemed to require a strong charwoman who would work twelve hours a day for £25 a year. Having parted with mutual veiled impolitenesses, I walked down Edgware Road (the interview had taken place in a house in St. John's Wood), and across Hyde Park to St. George's Hospital. There I entered Hyde Park Corner Tube Station and took a ticket to Gloucester Road.

Once on the platform I walked to the extreme end of it. My inquiring mind wished to satisfy itself as to whether there really
were
points and an opening between the two tunnels just beyond the station in the direction of Down Street. I was foolishly pleased to find I was right. There were not many people on the platform, and at the extreme end there was only myself and one man. As I passed him, I sniffed dubiously. If there is one smell I cannot bear it is that of mothballs! This man's heavy overcoat simply reeked of them. And yet most men begin to wear their winter overcoats before January, and consequently by this time the smell ought to have worn off. The man was beyond me, standing close to the edge of the tunnel. He seemed lost in thought, and I was able to stare at him without rudeness. He was a small, thin man, very brown of face, with blue, light eyes and a small dark beard.

“Just come from abroad,” I deduced. “That's why his overcoat smells so. He's come from India. Not an officer, or he wouldn't have a beard. Perhaps a tea planter.”

At this moment the man turned as though to retrace his steps along the platform. He glanced at me and then his eyes went on to something behind me, and his face changed. It was distorted by fear—almost panic. He took a step backwards as though involuntarily recoiling from some danger, forgetting that he was standing on the extreme edge of the platform, and went down and over. There was a vivid flash from the rails and a crackling sound. I shrieked. People came running up. Two station officials seemed to materialize from nowhere and took command.

I remained where I was, rooted to the spot by a sort of horrible fascination. Part of me was appalled at the sudden disaster, and another part of me was coolly and disapassionately interested in the methods employed for lifting the man off the live rail and back on to the platform.

“Let me pass, please. I am a medical man.”

A tall man with a brown beard pressed past me and bent over the motionless body.

As he examined it, a curious sense of unreality seemed to possess me. The thing wasn't real—couldn't be. Finally, the doctor stood upright and shook his head.

“Dead as a doornail. Nothing to be done.”

We had all crowded nearer, and an aggrieved porter raised his voice. “Now then, stand back there, will you? What's the sense in crowding round?”

A sudden nausea seized me, and I turned blindly and ran up the stairs again towards the lift. I felt that it was too horrible. I must get out into the open air. The doctor who had examined the body was just ahead of me. The lift was just about to go up, another having descended, and he broke into a run. As he did so, he dropped a piece of paper.

I stopped, picked it up, and ran after him. But the lift gates clanged in my face, and I was left holding the paper in my hand. By the time the second lift reached street level, there was no sign of my quarry. I hoped it was nothing important that he had lost, and for the first time I examined it. It was a plain half sheet of notepaper with some figures and words scrawled upon it in pencil. This is a facsimile of it:

On the face of it, it certainly did not appear to be of any importance. Still, I hesitated to throw it away. As I stood there holding it, I involuntarily wrinkled my nose in displeasure. Mothballs again! I held the paper gingerly to my nose. Yes, it smelt strongly of them. But, then—

I folded up the paper carefully and put it in my bag. I walked home slowly and did a good deal of thinking.

I explained to Mrs. Flemming that I had witnessed a nasty accident in the Tube and that I was rather upset and would go to my room and lie down. The kind woman insisted on my having a cup of tea. After that I was left to my own devices, and I proceeded to carry out a plan I had formed coming home. I wanted to know what it was that had produced that curious feeling of unreality whilst I was watching the doctor examine the body. First I lay down on the floor in the attitude of the corpse, then I laid a bolster down in my stead, and proceeded to duplicate, so far as I could remember, every motion and gesture of the doctor. When I had finished I had got what I wanted. I sat back on my heels and frowned at the opposite walls.

There was a brief notice in the evening papers that a man had been killed in the Tube, and a doubt was expressed whether it was suicide or accident. That seemed to me to make my duty clear, and when Mr. Flemming heard my story he quite agreed with me.