Harry Rayburn to warn him--warn him--
what of? I did not know myself. But there
was some great danger--and I alone could
save him. Then darkness again, merciful
darkness, and real sleep.
I woke at last myself again. The long
nightmare was over. I remembered perfectly
everything that had happened: my hurried
flight from the hotel to meet Harry, the man
275
in the shadows and that last terrible moment
of falling. . . .
By some miracle or other I had not been
killed. I was bruised and aching, and very
weak, but I was alive. But where was I?
Moving my head with difficulty I looked
round me. I was in a small room with rough
wooden walls. On them were hung skins of
animals and various tusks of ivory. I was
lying on a kind of rough couch, also covered
with skins, and my left arm was bandaged up
and felt stiff and uncomfortable. At first I
thought I was alone, and then I saw a man's
figure sitting between me and the light, his
head turned towards the window. He was so
still that he might have been carved out of
wood. Something in the close-cropped black
head was familiar to me, but I did not dare to
let my imagination run astray. Suddenly he
turned, and I caught my breath. It was Harry
Rayburn. Harry Rayburn in the flesh.
He rose and came over to me.
"Feeling better?" he said a trifle
awkwardly.
I could not answer. The tears were running
down my face. I was weak still, but I held his
hand in both of mine. If only I could die like
276
this, whilst he stood there looking down on
me with that new look in his eyes.
"Don't cry, Anne. Please don't cry. You're
safe now. No one shall hurt you."
He went and fetched a cup and brought it
to me.
"Drink some of this milk."
I drank obediently. He went on talking, in a
low coaxing tone such as he might have used
to a child.
"Don't ask any more questions now. Go to
sleep again. You'll be stronger by and by. I'll
go away if you like."
"No," I said urgently. "No, no."
"Then I'll stay."
He brought a small stool over beside me
and sat there. He laid his hand over mine,
and, soothed and comforted, I dropped off to
sleep once more.
It must have been evening then, but when I
woke again the sun was high in the heavens. I
was alone in the hut, but as I stirred an old
native woman came running in. She was
hideous as sin, but she grinned at me
encouragingly. She brought me water in a
basin and helped me wash my face and hands.
Then she brought me a large bowl of soup,
and I finished it every drop! I asked her
277
several question, but she only grinned and
nodded and chattered away in a guttural
language, so I gathered she knew no English.
Suddenly she stood up and drew back
respectfully as Harry Rayburn entered. He
gave her a nod of dismissal and she went out
leaving us alone. He smiled at me.
"Really better today!"
"Yes, indeed, but very bewildered still.
Where am I?"
"You're on a small island on the Zambesi
about four miles up from the Falls."
"Do--do my friends know Fin here?"
He shook his head.
"I must send word to them."
"That is as you like, of course, but if I were
you I should wait until you are a little
stronger."
"Why?"
He did not answer immediately, so I went
on:
"How long have I been here?"
His answer amazed me.
"Nearly a month."
"Oh!" I cried. "I must send word to
Suzanne. She'll be terrible anxious."
"Who is Suzanne?"
"Mrs. Blair. I was with her and Sir Eustace
278
and Colonel Race at the hotel—but you knew
that, surely?"
He shook his head.
"I know nothing, except that I found you,
caught in the fork of a tree, unconscious and
with a badly wrenched arm."
"Where was the tree?"
"Overhanging the ravine. But for your
clothes catching on the branches, you would
certainly have been dashed to pieces."
I shuddered. Then a thought struck me.
"You say you didn't know I was there.
What about the note then?"
"What note?"
"The note you sent me, asking me to meet
you in the clearing."
He stared at me.
"I sent no note."
I felt myself flushing up to the roots of my
hair. Fortunately he did not seem to notice.
"How did you come to be on the spot in
such a marvellous manner?" I asked, in as
nonchalant a manner as I could assume.
"And what are you doing in this part of the
world, anyway?"
"I live here," he said simply.
"On this island?"
"Yes, I came here after the War.
279
Sometimes I take parties from the hotel out in
my boat, but it costs me very little to live, and
mostly I do as I please."
"You live here all alone?"
"I am not pining for society, I assure you,"
he replied coldly.
"I am sorry to have inflicted mine upon
you," I retorted, "but I seem to have had very
little to say in the matter."
To my surprise, his eyes twinkled a little.
"None whatever. I slung you across my
shoulders like a sack of coal and carried you
to my boat. Quite like a primitive man of the
Stone Age."
"But for a different reason," I put in.
He flushed this time, a deep burning blush.
The tan of his face was suffused.
"But you haven't told me how you came to
be wandering about so conveniently for me?"
I said hastily, to cover his confusion.
"I couldn't sleep. I was restless--disturbed--had
the feeling something was going
to happen. In the end I took the boat and
came ashore and tramped down towards the
Falls. I was just at the head of the palm gully
when I heard you scream."
."Why didn't you get help from the hotel
280
instead of carting me all the way here?" I
asked.
He flushed again.
"I suppose it seems an unpardonable
liberty to you—but I don't think that even
now you realize your danger! You think I
should have informed your friends! Pretty
friends, who allowed you to be decoyed out to
death. No, I swore to myself that I'd take
better care of you than anyone else could. Not
a soul comes to this island. I got old Batani,
whom I cured of a fever once, to come and
look after you. She's loyal. She'll never say a
word. I coul
d keep you here for months and
no one would ever know."
I could keep you here for months and no one
would ever know! How some words please
one!
"You did quite right," I said quietly. "And
I shall not send word to anyone. A day or so
more anxiety doesn't make much difference.
It's not as though they were my own people.
They're only acquaintances really—even
Suzanne. And whoever wrote that note must
have known—a great deal! It was not the work
of an outsider."
I managed to mention the note this time
without blushing at all.
281
"If you would be guided by me——" he
said, hesitating.
"I don't expect I shall be," I answered
candidly. "But there's no harm in hearing."
"Do you always do what you like. Miss
Beddingfield?"
"Usually," I replied cautiously. To anyone
else I would have said "Always."
"I pity your husband," he said
unexpectedly.
"You needn't," I retorted. "I shouldn't
dream of marrying anyone unless I was madly
in love with him. And of course there is really
nothing a woman enjoys so much as doing all
the things she doesn't like for the sake of
someone she does like. And the more selfwilled
she is, the more she likes it."
"I'm afraid I disagree with you. The boot
is on the other leg as a rule." He spoke with a
slight sneer.
"Exactly," I cried eagerly. "And that's why
there are so many unhappy marriages. It's all
the fault of the men. Either they give way to
their women—and then the women despise
them-or else they are utterly selfish, insist on
their own way and never say 'thank you.'
Successful husbands make their wives do just
what they want, and then make a frightful
282
fuss of them for doing it. Women like to be
mastered, but they hate not to have their
sacrifices appreciated. On the other hand,
men don't really appreciate women who are
nice to them all the time. When I am married,
I shall be a devil most of the time, but every
now and then, when my husband least
expects it, I shall show him what a perfect
angel I can be!"
Harry laughed outright.
"What a cat-and-dog life you will lead!"
"Lovers always fight," I assured him.
"Because they don't understand each other.
And by the time they do understand each
other they aren't in love any more."
"Does the reverse hold true? Are people
who fight each other always lovers?"
"I—I don't know," I said, momentarily
confused.
He turned away to the fireplace.
"Like some more soup?" he asked in a
casual tone.
"Yes, please. I'm so hungry that I would
eat a hippopotamus."
"That's good."
He busied himself with the fire, I watched.
"When I can get off the couch, I'll cook for
you," I promised.
TMITBS 19
283
"I don't suppose you know anything about
cooking."
"I can warm up things out of tins as well as
you can," I retorted, pointing to a row of tins
on the mantelpiece.
l
His whole face changed when he laughed.
It became boyish, happy—a different
personality.
I enjoyed my soup. As I ate it I reminded
him that he had not, after all, tendered me his
advice.
"Ah, yes, what I was going to say was this.
If I were you I would stay quietly perdu here
until you are quite strong again. Your
enemies will believe you dead. They will
hardly be surprised at not finding the body. It
would have been dashed to pieces on the
rocks and carried down with the torrent."
I shivered.
"Once you are completely restored to
health, you can journey quietly on to Beira
and get a boat to take you back to England."
"That would be very tame," I objected
scornfully.
"There speaks a foolish schoolgirl."
"I'm not a foolish schoolgirl," I cried
indignantly. "I'm a woman."
284
He looked at me with an expression I could
not fathom, as I sat up flushed and excited.
"God help me, so you are," he muttered
and went abruptly out.
My recovery was rapid. The two injuries I
had sustained were a knock on the head and a
badly wrenched arm. The latter was the most
serious and, to begin with, my rescuer had
believed it to be actually broken. A careful
examination, however, convinced him that it
was not so, and although it was very painful I
was recovering the use of it quite quickly.
It was a strange time. We were cut off from
the world, alone together as Adam and Eve
might have been--but with what a difference!
Old Batani hovered about, counting no more
than a dog might have done. I insisted on
doing the cooking, or as much of it as I could
manage with one arm. Harry was out a good
part of the time, but we spent long hours
together lying out in the shade of the palms,
talking and quarrelling--discussing everything
under high heaven, quarrelling and
making it up again. We bickered a good deal, but there grew up between us a real and
lasting comradeship such as I could never
have believed possible. That--and something
else.
285
The time was drawing near, I knew it,
when I should be well enough to leave, and I
realized it with a heavy heart. Was he going
to let me go? Without a word? Without a
sign? He had fits of silence, long moody
intervals, moments when he would spring up
and tramp off by himself. One evening the
crisis came. We had finished our simple meal
and were sitting in the doorway of the hut.
The sun was sinking.
Hairpins were necessities of life with which
Harry had not been able to provide me, and
my hair, straight and black, hung to my
knees. I sat, my chin on my hands, lost in
meditation. I felt rather than saw Harry
looking at me.
"You look like a witch, Anne," he said at
last, and there was something in his voice that
had never been there before.
He reached out his hand and just touched
my hair. I shivered. Suddenly he sprang up
with an oath.
"You must leave here to-morrow, do you
hear?" he cried. "I—I can't bear any more.
I'm only a man after all. You must go, Anne.
You must. You're not a fool. You know
yourself that this can't go on."
286
"I suppose not," I said slowly. "But—it's
been happy, hasn't it?"
"Happy? It's been hell!"
"As bad as t
hat!"
"What do you torment me for? Why are
you mocking at me? Why do you say thatlaughing into your hair?"
"I wasn't laughing. And I'm not mocking.
If you want me to go, I'll go. But if you want
me to stay—I'll stay."
"Not that!" he cried vehemently. "Not
that. Don't tempt me, Anne. Do you realize
what I am? A criminal twice over. A man
hunted down. They know me here as Harry
Parker—they think I've been away on a trek
up country, but any day they may put two
and two together—and then the blow will fall.
You're so young, Anne, and so beautiful—
with the kind of beauty that sends men mad.
All the world's before you—love, life,
everything. Mine's behind me—scorched,
spoiled, with a taste of bitter ashes."
"If you don't want me——"
"You know I want you. You know that I'd
give my soul to pick you up in my arms and
keep you here, hidden away from the world,
for ever and ever. And you're tempting me,
Anne. You, with your long witch's hair, and
287
your eyes that are golden and brown and
green and never stop laughing even when
your mouth is grave. But I'll save you from
yourself and from me. You shall go tonight.
You shall go to Beira----"
"I'm not going to Beira," I interrupted.
"You are. You shall go to Beira if I have to
take you there myself and throw you on to the
boat. What do you think I'm made of? Do
you think I'll wake up night after night, fearing they've got you? One can't go on
counting on miracles happening. You must
go back to England, Anne--and--and marry
and be happy."
"With a steady man who'll give me a good
home!"
"Better that than--utter disaster."
"And what of you?"
His face grew grim and set.
"I've got my work ready to hand. Don't ask
what it is. You can guess, I dare say. But I'll
tell you this--I'll clear my name, or die in the
attempt, and I'll choke the life out of the
damned scoundrel who did his best to murder
you the other night."
"We must be fair," I said. "He didn't
actually push me over."
"He'd no need to. His plan was cleverer
288
than that. I went up to the path afterwards.
Everything looked all right, but by the marks
on the ground I saw that the stones which
outlined the path had been taken up and put
down again in a slightly different place.
AgathaChristie-TheManInTheBrownSuit Page 21