AgathaChristie-TheManInTheBrownSuit
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something a little unusual about the sealing
of the packet. It was opened, and found to
contain knobs of sugar!
"Exactly how suspicion came to fasten on
John Eardsley I do not know. It was
remembered that he had been very wild at
Cambridge and that his father had paid his
debts more than once. Anyhow, it soon got
about that this story of South American
diamond fields was all a fantasy. John
Eardsley was arrested. In his possession was
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found a portion of the De Beers diamonds.
"But the case never came to court. Sir
Laurence Eardsley paid over a sum equal to
the missing diamonds, and De Beers did not
prosecute. Exactly how the robbery was
committed has never been known. But the
knowledge that his son was a thief broke the
old man's heart. He had a stroke shortly afterwards.
As for John, his Fate was in a way
merciful. He enlisted, went to the War, fought there bravely, and was killed, thus
wiping out the stain on his name. Sir
Laurence himself had a third stroke and died
about a month ago. He died intestate and his
vast fortune passed to his next of kin, a man
whom he hardly knew."
The Colonel paused. A babel of ejaculations
and questions broke out. Something
seemed to attract Miss Beddingfield's
attention, and she turned in her chair. At the
little gasp she gave, I, too, turned.
My new secretary, Rayburn, was standing
in the doorway. Under his tan, his face had
the pallor of one who has seen a ghost.
Evidently Race's story had moved him
profoundly.
Suddenly conscious of our scrutiny, he
turned abruptly and disappeared.
^ ' 137
"Do you know who that is?" asked Anne
Beddingfield abruptly.
"That's my other secretary," I explained.
"Mr. Rayburn. He's been seedy up to now."
She toyed with the bread by her plate.
"Has he been your secretary long?"
"Not very long," I said cautiously.
But caution is useless with a woman, the
more you hold back, the more she presses
forward. Anne Beddingfield made no bones
about it.
"How long?" she asked bluntly.
"Well—er—I engaged him just before I
sailed. Old friend of mine recommended
him."
She said nothing more, but relapsed into a
thoughtful silence. I turned to Race with the
feeling that it was my turn to display an
interest in his story.
"Who is Sir Laurence's next of kin. Race?
Do you know?"
"I should do so," he replied, with a smile.
"I am!"
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14
(Anne's Narrative Resumed)
T was on the night of the Fancy Dress dance that I decided that the time had
come for me to confide in someone. So far
I had played a lone hand and rather enjoyed
it. Now suddenly everything was changed. I
distrusted my own judgement and for the
first time a feeling of loneliness and desolation
crept over me.
I
I sat on the edge of my bunk, still in my
gipsy dress, and considered the situation. I
thought first of Colonel Race. He had seemed
to like me. He would be kind, I was sure. And
he was no fool. Yet, as I thought it over, I
wavered. He was a man of commanding
personality. He would take the whole matter
out of my hands. And it was my mystery!
There were other reasons, too, which I would
hardly acknowledge to myself, but which
made it inadvisable to confide in Colonel
Race.
Then I thought of Mrs. Blair. She, too, had
been kind to me. I did not delude myself into
1MITBS10 139
the belief that that really meant anything. It
was probably a mere whim of the moment.
All the same, I had it in my power to interest
her. She was a woman who had experienced
most of the ordinary sensations of life. I
proposed to supply her with an extraordinary
one! And I liked her, liked her ease of
manner, her lack of sentimentality, her
freedom from any form of affection.
My mind was made up. I decided to seek
her out then and there. She would hardly be
in bed yet.
Then I remembered that I did not know the
number of her cabin. My friend, the night
stewardess, would probably know.
I rang the bell. After some delay it was
answered by a man. He gave me the information
I wanted. Mrs. Blair's cabin was No.
71. He apologized for the delay in answering
the bell, but explained that he had all the
cabins to attend to.
"Where is the stewardess, then?" I asked.
"They all go off duty at ten o'clock."
"No--I mean the night stewardess."
"No stewardess on at night, miss."
"But--but a stewardess came the other
night--about one o'clock."
"You must have been dreaming, miss.
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There's no stewardess on duty after ten."
He withdrew and I was left to digest this
morsel of information. Who was the woman
who had come to my cabin on the night of the
22nd? My face grew graver as I realized the
cunning and audacity of my unknown
antagonists. Then, pulling myself together, I
left my own cabin and sought that of Mrs.
Blair. I knocked at the door.
"Who's that?" called her voice from
within.
"It's me—Anne Beddingfield."
"Oh, come in, gipsy girl."
I entered. A good deal of scattered clothing
lay about, and Mrs. Blair herself was draped
in one of the loveliest kimonos I had ever
seen. It was all orange and gold and black and
made my mouth water to look at it.
"Mrs. Blair," I said abruptly, "I want to
tell you the story of my life—that is, if it isn't
too late, and you won't be bored."
"Not a bit. I always hate going to bed,"
said Mrs. Blair, her face crinkling into smiles
in the delightful way it had. "And I should
love to hear the story of your life. You're a
most unusual creature, gipsy girl. Nobody
else would think of bursting in on me at
1 a.m. to tell me the story of their life.
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Especially after snubbing my natural
curiosity for weeks as you have done! I'm not
accustomed to being snubbed. It's been quite
a pleasing novelty. Sit down on the sofa and
unburden your soul."
I told her the whole story. It took some
time as I was conscientious over all the
details. She gave a deep sigh when I had
finished, but she did not say at all what I had
expected her to say. Instead she looked at me,
laughed a little and said:
"Do you know, Anne, you're a very
unusual girl? Haven't you ever ha
d qualms?"
"Qualms?" I asked, puzzled.
"Yes, qualms, qualms, qualms! Starting off
alone with practically no money. What will
you do when you find yourself in a strange
country with all your money gone?"
"It's no good bothering about that until it
comes. I've got plenty of money still. The
twenty-five pounds that Mrs. Flemming gave
me is practically intact, and then I won the
sweep yesterday. That's another fifteen
pounds. Why, I've got lots of money. Forty
pounds!"
"Lots of money! My God!" murmured
Mrs. Blair. "I couldn't do it, Anne, and I've
plenty of pluck in my own way. I couldn't
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start off gaily with a few pounds in my pocket
and no idea as to what I was doing and where
I was going."
"But that's the fun of it," I cried,
thoroughly roused. "It gives one such a
splendid feeling of adventure."
She looked at me, nodded once or twice, and then smiled.
"Lucky Anne! There aren't many people in
the world who feel as you do."
"Well," I said impatiently, "what do you
think of it all. Mrs. Blair?"
"I think it's the most thrilling thing I ever
heard! Now, to begin with, you will stop
calling me Mrs. Blair. Suzanne will be ever so
much better. Is that agreed?"
"I should love it, Suzanne."
"Good girl. Now let's get down to business.
You say that in Sir Eustace's secretary--
not that long-faced Pagett, the other
one--you recognized the man who was
stabbed and came into your cabin for shelter?"
I nodded.
"That gives us two links connecting Sir
Eustace with the tangle. The woman was
murdered in his house, and it's his secretary
who gets stabbed at the mystic hour of one
& 143
o'clock. I don't suspect Sir Eustace himself,
but it can't be all coincidence. There's a
connection somewhere even if he himself is
unaware of it.
"Then there's the queer business of the
stewardess," she continued thoughtfully.
"What was she like?"
"I hardly noticed her. I was so excited and
strung up—and a stewardess seemed such an
anticlimax. But—yes—I did think her face
was familiar. Of course it would be if I'd seen
her about the ship."
"Her face seemed familiar to you," said
Suzanne. "Sure she wasn't a man?"
"She was very tall," I admitted.
"Hum. Hardly Sir Eustace, I should think,
nor Mr. Pagett——Wait!"
She caught up a scrap of paper and began
drawing feverishly. She inspected the result
with her head poised on one side.
"A very good likeness of the Rev. Edward
Chichester. Now for the etceteras." She
passed the paper over to me. "Is that your
stewardess?"
"Why, yes," I cried. "Suzanne, how clever
of you!"
She disdained the compliment with a light
gesture.
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"I've always had suspicions of that
Chichester creature. Do you remember how
he dropped his coffee-cup and turned a sickly
green when we were discussing Crippen the
other day?"
"And he tried to get Cabin 17!"
"Yes, it all fits in so far. But what does it all
mean? What was really meant to happen at
one o'clock in Cabin 17? It can't be the
stabbing of the secretary. There would be no
point in timing that for a special hour on a
special day in a special place. No, it must
have been some kind of appointment and he
was on his way to keep it when they knifed
him. But who was the appointment with?
Certainly not with you. It might have been
with Chichester. Or it might have been with
Pagett."
"That seems unlikely," I objected, "they
can see each other any time."
We both sat silent for a minute or two, then
Suzanne started off on another tack.
"Could there have been anything hidden
in the cabin?"
"That seems more probable," I agreed. "It
would explain my things being ransacked the
next morning. But there was nothing hidden
there, I'm sure of it."
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"The young man couldn't have slipped
something into a drawer the night before?"
I shook my head.
"I should have seen him."
"Could it have been your precious piece of
paper they were looking for?"
"It might have been, but it seems rather
senseless. It was only a time and a date—and
they were both past by then."
Suzanne nodded.
"That's so, of course. No, it wasn't the
paper. By the way, have you got it with you?
I'd rather like to see it."
I had brought the paper with me as Exhibit
A, and handed it over to her. She scrutinized
it, frowning.
"There's a dot after the 17. Why isn't there
a dot after the 1 too?"
"There's a space," I pointed out.
"Yes, there's a space, but——"
Suddenly she rose and peered at the paper,
holding it as close under the light as possible.
There was a repressed excitement in her
manner.
"Anne, that isn't a dot! That's a flaw in the
paper! A flaw in the paper, you see? So
you've got to ignore it, and just go by the
spaces—the spaces!"
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I had risen and was standing by her. I read
out the figures as I now saw them.
"I 71 22."
"You see," said Suzanne. "It's the same, but not quite. It's one o'clock still, and the
22nd--but it's Cabin 71! My cabin, Anne!"
We stood staring at each other, so pleased
with our new discovery and so rap with
excitement that you might have thought we
had solved the whole mystery. Then I fell to
earth with a bump.
"But, Suzanne, nothing happened here at
one o'clock on the 22nd?"
Her face fell also.
"No-it didn't."
Another idea struck me.
"This isn't your own cabin, is it, Suzanne?
I mean not the one you originally booked?"
"No, the purser changed me into it."
"I wonder if it was booked before sailing
for someone--someone who didn't turn up. I
suppose we could find out."
"We don't need to find out, gipsy girl,"
cried Suzanne. "I know! The purser was
telling me about it. The cabin was booked in
the name of Mrs. Grey--but it seems that Mrs. Grey was merely a pseudonym for the
famous Madame Nadina. She's a celebrated
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Russian dancer, you know. She's never
appeared in London, but Paris has been quite
mad about her. She had a terrific success
there all through the War. A thoroughly bad
lot, I believe, but most attractive. The purser
expressed his regrets that she wasn't o
n board
in a most heartfelt fashion when he gave me
her cabin, and then Colonel Race told me a
lot about her. It seems there was very queer
stories afloat in Paris. She was suspected of
espionage, but they couldn't prove anything.
I rather fancy Colonel Race was over there
simply on that account. He's told me some
very interesting things. There was a regular
organized gang, not German in origin at all.
In fact the head of it, a man always referred to
as "the Colonel," was thought to be an
Englishman, but they never got any clue as to
his identity. But there is no doubt that he
controlled a considerable organization of
international crooks. Robberies, espionage,
assaults, he undertook them all—and usually
provided an innocent scapegoat to pay the
penalty. Diabolically clever, he must have
been! This woman was supposed to be one of
his agents, but they couldn't get hold of
anything to go upon. Yes, Anne, we're on the
right tack. Nadina is just the woman to be
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mixed up in this business. The appointment
on the morning of the 22nd was with her in
this cabin. But where is she? Why didn't she
sail?"
A light flashed upon me.
"She meant to sail," I said slowly.
"Then why didn't she?"
^Because she was dead. Suzanne, Nadina
was the woman murdered at Marlow!"
My mind went back to the bare room in the
empty house and there swept over me again
that indefinable sensation of menace and evil.
With it came the memory of the falling pencil
and the discovery of the roll of films. A roll of
films—that struck a more recent note. Where
had I heard of a roll of films? And why did I
connect that thought with Mrs. Blair?
Suddenly I flew at her and almost shook
her in my excitement.
"Your films! The ones that were passed to
you through the ventilator? Wasn't that on
the 22nd?"
"The ones I lost?"
"How do you know they were the same?
Why would anyone return them to you that
way—in the middle of the night? It's a mad
idea. No—they were a message, the films had
been taken out of the yellow tin case, and
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something else put inside. Have you got it
still?"
"I may have used it. No, here it is. I
remember I tossed it into the rack at the side
of the bunk."