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“Well, stop typing it then. Go down to the Trade Commissioner’s Office, or the Board of Agriculture, or the Chamber of Mines, or one of these places, and ask them to lend me some kind of a woman to take to Rhodesia. She must have liquid eyes and not object to my holding her hand.”
“Yes, Sir Eustace. I will ask for a competent short-hand-typist.”
“Pagett’s a malicious fellow,” said Sir Eustace, after the secretary had departed. “I’d be prepared to bet that he’ll pick out some slabfaced creature on purpose to annoy me. She must have nice feet too I forgot to mention that.”
I clutched Suzanne excitedly by the hand and almost dragged her along to her room.
“Now, Suzanne,” I said, “we’ve got to make plans—and make them quickly. Pagett is staying behind here—you heard that?”
“Yes. I suppose that means that I shan’t be allowed to go to Rhodesia—which is very annoying, because I want to go to Rhodesia. How tiresome.”
“Cheer up,” I said. “You’re going all right. I don’t see how you could back out at the last moment without its appearing frightfully suspicious. And, besides, Pagett might suddenly be summoned by Sir Eustace, and it would be far harder for you to attach yourself to him for the journey up.”
“It would hardly be respectable,” said Suzanne, dimpling. “I should have to pretend a fatal passion for him as an excuse.”
“On the other hand, if you were there when he arrived, it would all be perfectly simple and natural. Besides, I don’t think we ought to lose sight of the other two entirely.”
“Oh, Anne, you surely can’t suspect Colonel Race or Sir Eustace?”
“I suspect everybody,” I said darkly, “and if you’ve read any detective stories, Suzanne, you must know that it’s always the most unlikely person who’s the villain. Lots of criminals have been cheerful fat men like Sir Eustace.”
“Colonel Race isn’t particularly fat—or particularly cheerful either.”
“Sometimes they’re lean and saturnine,” I retorted. “I don’t say I seriously suspect either of them, but, after all, the woman was murdered in Sir Eustace’s house——”
“Yes, yes, we needn’t go over all that again. I’ll watch him for you, Anne, and if he gets any fatter and any more cheerful, I’ll send you a telegram at once. ‘Sir E. swelling. Highly suspicious. Come at once.’”
“Really, Suzanne,” I cried, “you seem to think all this is a game!”
“I know I do,” said Suzanne, unabashed. “It seems like that. It’s your fault, Anne. I’ve got imbued with your ‘Let’s have an adventure’ spirit. It doesn’t seem a bit real. Dear me, if Clarence knew that I was running about Africa tracking dangerous criminals, he’d have a fit.”
“Why don’t you cable him about it?” I asked sarcastically.
Suzanne’s sense of humour always fails her when it comes to sending cables. She considered my suggestion in perfectly good faith.
“I might. It would have to be a very long one.” Her eyes brightened at the thought. “But I think it’s better not. Husbands always want to interfere with perfectly harmless amusements.”
“Well,” I said, summing up the situation, “you will keep an eye on Sir Eustace and Colonel Race——”
“I know why I’ve got to watch Sir Eustace,” interrupted Suzanne, “because of his figure and his humorous conversation. But I think it’s carrying it rather far to suspect Colonel Race, I do indeed. Why, he’s something to do with the Secret Service. Do you know, Anne, I believe the best thing we could do would be to confide in him and tell him the whole story.”
I objected vigorously to this unsporting proposal. I recognized in it the disastrous effects of matrimony. How often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female say, in the tone of one clinching an argument, “Edgarsays——” And all the time you are perfectly aware that Edgar is a perfect fool. Suzanne, by reason of her married state, was yearning to lean upon some man or other.
However, she promised faithfully that she would not breathe a word to Colonel Race, and we went on with our plan-making.
“It’s quite clear that I must stay here and watch Pagett, and this is the best way to do it. I must pretend to leave for Durban this evening, take my luggage down and so on, but really I shall go to some small hotel in the town. I can alter my appearance a little— wear a fair toupee and one of those thick white lace veils, and I shall have a much better chance of seeing what he’s really at if he thinks I’m safely out of the way.”
Suzanne approved this plan heartily. We made due and ostentatious preparations, inquiring once more about the departure of the train at the office and packing my luggage.
We dined together in the restaurant. Colonel Race did not appear, but Sir Eustace and Pagett were at their table in the window. Pagett left the table half-way through the meal, which annoyed me, as I had planned to say goodbye to him. However, doubtless Sir Eustace would do as well. I went over to him when I had finished.
“Good-bye, Sir Eustace,” I said. “I’m off to-night to Durban.”
Sir Eustace sighed heavily.
“So I heard. You wouldn’t like me to come with you, would you?”
“I should love it.”
“Nice girl. Sure you won’t change your mind and come and look for lions in Rhodesia?”
“Quite sure.”
“He must be a very handsome fellow,” said Sir Eustace plaintively. “Some young whipper-snapper in Durban, I suppose, who puts my mature charms completely in the shade. By the way, Pagett’s going down in the car in a minute or two. He could take you to the station.”
“Oh, no, thank you,” I said hastily. “Mrs. Blair and I have got our own taxi ordered.”
To go down with Guy Pagett was the last thing I wanted! Sir Eustace looked at me attentively.
“I don’t believe you like Pagett. I don’t blame you. Of all the officious, interfering asses—going about with the air of a martyr, and doing everything he can to annoy and upset me!”
“What has he done now?” I inquired with some curiosity.
“He’s got hold of a secretary for me. You never saw such a woman! Forty, if she’s a day, wears pince-nez and sensible boots and an air of brisk efficiency that will be the death of me. A regular slabfaced woman.”
“Won’t she hold your hand?”
“I devoutly hope not!” exclaimed Sir Eustace. “That would be the last straw. Well, good-bye, liquid eyes. If I shoot a lion I shan’t give you the skin—after the base way you’ve deserted me.”
He squeezed my hand warmly and we parted. Suzanne was waiting for me in the hall. She was to come down to see me off.
“Let’s start at once,” I said hastily, and motioned to the man to get a taxi.
Then a voice behind me made me start:
“Excuse me, Miss Beddingfeld, but I’m just going down in a car. I can drop you and Mrs. Blair at the station.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said hastily. “But there’s no need to trouble you. I——”
“No trouble at all, I assure you. Put the luggage in, porter.”
I was helpless. I might have protested further, but a slight warning nudge from Suzanne urged me to be on my guard.
“Thank you, Mr. Pagett,” I said coldly.
We all got into the car. As we raced down the road into the town, I racked my brains for something to say. In the end Pagett himself broke the silence.
“I have secured a very capable secretary for Sir Eustace,” he observed. “Miss Pettigrew.”
“He wasn’t exactly raving about her just now,” I remarked.
Pagett looked at me coldly.
“She is a proficient shorthand-typist,” he said repressively.
We pulled up in front of the station. Here surely he would leave us. I turned with outstretched hand—but no.
“I’ll come and see you off. It’s just eight o’clock, your train goes in a quarter of an hour.”
He gave efficient directions to porters. I stood helpless, not daring to look at Suzanne. The man suspected. He was determined to make sure that I did go by the train. And what could I do? Nothing. I saw myself, in a quarter of an hour’s time, steaming out of the station with Pagett planted on the platform waving me adieu. He had turned the tables on me adroitly. His manner towards me had changed, moreover. It was full of an uneasy geniality which sat ill upon him, and which nauseated me. The man was an oily hypocrite. First he tried to murder me, and now he paid me compliments! Did he imagine for one minute that I hadn’t recognized him that night on the boat? No, it was a pose, a pose which he forced me to acquiesce in, his tongue in his cheek all the while.
Helpless as a sheep, I moved along under his expert directions. My luggage was piled in my sleeping compartment I had a twoberth one to myself. It was twelve minutes past eight. In three minutes the train would start.
But Paggett had reckoned without Suzanne.
“It will be a terribly hot journey, Anne,” she said suddenly. “Especially going through the Karoo to-morrow. You’ve got some eau-de-Cologne or lavender water with you, haven’t you?”
My cue was plain.
“Oh, dear,” I cried. “I left my eau-de-Cologne on the dressing-table at the hotel.”
Suzanne’s habit of command served her well. She turned imperiously to Pagett.
“Mr. Pagett. Quick. You’ve just time. There’s a chemist almost opposite the station. Anne must have some eau-de-Cologne.”
He hesitated, but Suzanne’s imperative manner was too much for him. She is a born autocrat. He went. Suzanne followed him with her eyes till he disappeared.
“Quick, Anne, get out the other side—in case he hasn’t really gone, but is watching us from the end of the platform. Never mind your luggage. You can telegraph about that to-morrow. Oh, if only the train starts on time!”
I opened the gate on the opposite side to the platform and climbed down. Nobody was observing me. I could just see Suzanne standing where I had left her, looking up at the train and apparently chatting to me at the window. A whistle blew, the train began to draw out. Then I heard feet racing furiously up the platform. I withdrew to the shadow of a friendly bookstall and watched.
Suzanne turned from waving her handkerchief to the retreating train.
“Too late, Mr. Pagett,” she said cheerfully. “She’s gone. Is that the eau-de-Cologne? What a pity we didn’t think of it sooner!”
They passed not far from me on their way out of the station. Guy Pagett was extremely hot. He had evidently run all the way to the chemist and back.
“Shall I get you a taxi, Mrs. Blair?”
Suzanne did not fail in her rôle.
“Yes, please. Can’t I give you a lift back? Have you much to do for Sir Eustace? Dear me, I wish Anne Beddingfeld was coming with us to-morrow. I don’t like the idea of a young girl like that travelling off to Durban all by herself. But she was set upon it. Some little attraction there, I fancy——”
They passed out of ear-shot. Clever Suzanne. She had saved me.
I allowed a minute or two to elapse and then I too made my way out of the station, almost colliding as I did so with a man—an unpleasant-looking man with a nose disproportionately big for his face.
CHAPTER XXI
I had no further difficulty in carrying out my plans. I found a small hotel in a back street, got a room there, paid a deposit as I had no luggage with me, and went placidly to bed.
On the following morning I was up early and went out into the town to purchase a modest wardrobe. My idea was to do nothing until after the departure of the eleven-o’clock train to Rhodesia with most of the party on board. Pagett was not likely to indulge in any nefarious activities until he had got rid of them. Accordingly I took a tram out of the town and proceeded to enjoy a country walk. It was comparatively cool, and I was glad to stretch my legs after the long voyage and my close confinement at Muizenberg.
A lot hinges on small things. My shoe-lace came untied, and I stopped to do it up. The road had just turned a corner, and as I was bending over the offending shoe a man came right round and almost walked into me. He lifted his hat, murmuring an apology, and went on. It struck me at the time that his face was vaguely familiar, but at the moment I thought no more of it. I looked at my wrist-watch. The time was getting on. I turned my feet in the direction of Cape Town.
There was a tram on the point of going and I had to run for it. I heard other footsteps running behind me. I swung myself on and so did the other runner. I recognized him at once. It was the man who had passed me on the road when my shoe came untied, and in a flash I knew why his face was familiar. It was the small man with the big nose whom I had run into on leaving the station the night before.
The coincidence was rather startling. Could it be possible that the man was deliberately following me? I resolved to test that as promptly as possible. I rang the bell and got off at the next stop.
The man did not get off. I withdrew into the shadow of a shop doorway and watched. He alighted at the next stop and walked back in my direction.
The case was clear enough. I was being followed. I had crowed too soon. My victory over Guy Pagett took on another aspect. I hailed the next tram and, as I expected, my shadower also got on. I gave myself up to some very serious thinking.
It was perfectly apparent that I had stumbled on a bigger thing than I knew. The murder in the house at Marlow was not an isolated incident committed by a solitary individual. I was up against a gang, and, thanks to Colonel Race’s revelations to Suzanne, and what I had overheard at the house at Muizenberg, I was beginning to understand some of its manifold activities. Systematized crime, organized by the man known to his followers as the “Colonel”! I remembered some of the talk I had heard on board ship, of the strike on the Rand and the causes underlying it and the belief that some secret organization was at work fomenting the agitation. That was the “Colonel’s” work, his emissaries were acting according to plan. He took no part in these things himself, I had always heard, as he limited himself to directing and organizing. The brain-work—not the dangerous labour—for him. But still it well might be that he himself was on the spot, directing affairs from an apparently impeccable position.
That, then, was the meaning of Colonel Race’s presence on the Kilmorden Castle. He was out after the arch-criminal. Everything fitted in with that assumption. He was some one high up in the Secret Service whose business it was to lay the “Colonel” by the heels.
I nodded to myself—things were becoming very clear to me. What of my part in the affair? Where did I come in? Was it only diamonds they were after? I shook my head. Great as the value of the diamonds might be, they hardly accounted for the desperate attempts which had been made to get me out of the way. No, I stood for more than that. In some way, unknown to myself, I was a menace, a danger! Some knowledge that I had, or that they thought
I had, made them anxious to remove me at all costs—and that knowledge was bound up somehow with the diamonds. There was one person, I felt sure, who could enlighten me—if he would! The Man in the Brown Suit—Harry Rayburn. He knew the other half of the story. But he had vanished into the darkness, he was a hunted creature flying from pursuit. In all probability he and I would never meet again. . . .
I brought myself back with a jerk to the actualities of the moment. It was no good thinking sentimentally of Harry Rayburn. He had displayed the greatest antipathy to me from the first. Or, at least There I was again—dreaming! The real problem was what to do— now!
I, priding myself upon my rôle of watcher, had become the watched. And I was afraid! For the first time I began to lose my nerve. I was the little bit of grit that was impeding the smooth working of the great machine—and I fancied that the machine would have a short way with little bits of grit. Once Harry Rayburn had saved me, once I had saved myself—but I felt suddenly that the odds were heavily against me. My enemies were all around me in every direction, and they were closing in. If I continued to play a lone hand I was doomed.
I rallied myself with an effort. After all, what could they do? I was in a civilized city with policemen every few yards. I would be wary in future. They should not trap me again as they had done in Muizenberg.
As I reached this point in my meditations, the train arrived at Adderly Street. I got out. Undecided what to do, I walked slowly up the left-hand side of the street. I did not trouble to look if my watcher was behind me. I knew he was. I walked into Cartwright’s and ordered two coffee ice-cream sodas—to steady my nerves. A man, I suppose, would have had a stiff peg; but girls derive a lot of comfort from ice-cream sodas. I applied myself to the end of the straw with gusto. The cool liquid went trickling down my throat in the most agreeable manner. I pushed the first glass aside empty.
I was sitting on one of the little high stools in front of the counter. Out of the tail of my eye, I saw my tracker come in and sit down unostentatiously at a little table near the door. I finished the second coffee soda and demanded a maple one. I can drink practically an unlimited amount of ice-cream sodas.
Suddenly the man by the door got up and went out. That surprised me. If he was going to wait outside, why not wait outside from the beginning. I slipped down from my stool and went cautiously to the door. I drew back quickly into the shadow. The man was talking to Guy Pagett.
If I had ever had any doubts, that would have settled it. Pagett had his watch out and was looking at it. They exchanged a few brief words, and then the secretary swung on down the street towards the station. Evidently he had given his orders. But what were they?
Suddenly my heart leapt into my mouth. The man who had followed me crossed to the middle of the road and spoke to a policeman. He spoke at some length, gesticulating towards Cartwright’s and evidently explaining something. I saw the plan at once. I was to be arrested on some charge or other—pocket-picking, perhaps. It would be easy enough for the gang to put through a simple little matter like that. Of what good to protest my innocence? They would have seen to every detail. Long ago they had brought a charge of robbing De Beers against Harry Rayburn, and he had not been able to disprove it, though I had little doubt but that he had been absolutely blameless. What chance had I against such a “frame up” as the “Colonel” could devise?
I glanced up at the clock almost mechanically, and immediately another aspect of the case struck me. I saw the point of Guy Pagett’s looking at his watch. It was just on eleven, and at eleven the mail train left for Rhodesia bearing with it the influential friends who might otherwise come to my rescue. That was the reason of my immunity up to now. From last night till eleven this morning I had been safe, but now the net was closing in upon me.
I hurriedly opened my bag and paid for my drinks, and as I did so, my heart seemed to stand still, for inside it was a man’s wallet stuffed with notes! It must have been deftly introduced into my handbag as I left the tram.
Promptly I lost my head. I hurried out of Cartwright’s. The little man with the big nose and the policeman were just crossing the road. They saw me, and the little man designated me excitedly to the policeman. I took to my heels and ran. I judged him to be a slow policeman. I should get a start. But I had no plan, even then. I just ran for my life down Adderly Street. People began to stare. I felt that in another minute some one would stop me.
An idea flashed into my head.
“The station?” I asked, in a breathless gasp.
“Just down on the right.”
I sped on. It is permissible to run for a train. I turned into the station, but as I did so I heard footsteps close behind me. The little man with the big nose was a champion sprinter. I foresaw that I should be stopped before I got to the platform I was in search of. I looked up to the clock—one minute to eleven. I might just do it if my plan succeeded.
I had entered the station by the main entrance in Adderly Street. I now darted out again through the side exit. Directly opposite me was the side entrance to the post office, the main entrance to which is in Adderly Street.
As I expected, my pursuer, instead of following me in, ran down the street to cut me off when I emerged by the main entrance, or to warn the policeman to do so.
In an instant I slipped across the street again and back into the station. I ran like a lunatic. It was just eleven. The long train was moving as I appeared on the platform. A porter tried to stop me, but I wriggled myself out of his grasp and sprang upon the footboard. I mounted the two steps and opened the gate. I was safe! The train was gathering way.
We passed a man standing by himself at the end of the platform. I waved to him.
“Good-bye, Mr. Pagett,” I shouted.
Never have I seen a man more taken aback. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.
In a minute or two I was having trouble with the conductor. But I took a lofty tone.
“I am Sir Eustace Pedler’s secretary,” I said haughtily. “Please take me to his private car.”
Suzanne and Colonel Race were standing on the rear observation platform. They both uttered an exclamation of utter surprise at seeing me.
“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.
CHAPTER XXII
(ExtractfromthediaryofSirEustacePedler)
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 myprivate 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 on board the train at the last minute, puffing like a steamengine for all the world as though she’d 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 travellers’ 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 waked up to-morrow 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 or so 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 non-committally. 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.
Thursdaynight.
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 DailyBudgetRayburn 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 DailyBudgetis 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 DailyBudget.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!
To-morrow 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.
Fridayevening.
As I feared. Mrs. Blair and Anne have bought forty-nine wooden animals!
CHAPTER XXIII
(Anne’sNarrativeResumed)
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 Bechuanaland, 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 myears. 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.
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 didown 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 tin-tacks 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 for ever. The solution of all my difficulties lay ready to my hand, though I didn’t think of it for some time. The DailyBudget! 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 every one. 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 DailyBudgetwas hard up for a sensation. My guess was verified and proved to be correct and the DailyBudgethad 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.
CHAPTER XXIV
We 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—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 Matoppos 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 waiters 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 Matoppos 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 to-day—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. Every one 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 soul 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 pæan of rugged beauty.
We sat there for some 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
