There are tall bushes growing just over the
edge. He'd balanced the outside stones on
them, so that you'd think you were still on
the path when in reality you were stepping
into nothingness. God help him if I lay my
hands upon him!"
He paused a minute and then said, in a
totally different tone:
"We've never spoken of these things,
Anne, have we? But the time's come. I want
you to hear the whole story—from the
beginning."
"If it hurts you to go over the past, don't
tell me," I said in a low voice.
"But I want you to know. I never thought I
should speak of that part of my life to anyone.
Funny, isn't it, the tricks Fate plays?"
He was silent for a minute or two. The sun
has set, and the velvety darkness of the
African night was enveloping us like a
mantle.
"Some of it I know," I said gently.
"What do you know?"
289
<
Lucas."
Still he hesitated--not looking at me, but
staring straight out in front of him. I had no
clue as to what was passing in his mind, but
at last he jerked his head forward as though
acquiescing in some unspoken decision of his
own, and began his story.
290
26
" ^^ 7^ OU are right. My real name is ^[ Harry Lucas. My father was a reA. tired soldier who came out to farm
in Rhodesia. He died when I was in my
second year at Cambridge."
"Were you fond of him?" I asked suddenly.
"I-don't know."
Then he flushed and went on with sudden
vehemence:
"Why do I say that? I did love my father.
We said bitter things to each other the last
time I saw him, and we had many rows over
my wildness and my debts, but I cared for the
old man. I know how much now--when it's
too late," he continued more quietly. "It was
at Cambridge that I met the other fellow----"
"Young Eardsley?"
"Yes--young Eardsley. His father, as you
know, was one of South Africa's most
prominent men. We drifted together at once, my friend and I. We had our love of South
Africa in common and we both had a taste for
the untrodden places of the world. After we
291
left Cambridge, Eardsley had a final quarrel
with his father. The old man had paid his
debts twice, he refused to do so again. There
was a bitter scene between them. Sir
Laurence declared himself at the end of his
patience—he would do no more for his son.
He must stand on his own legs for a while.
The result was, as you know, that those two
young men went off to South America
together, prospecting for diamonds. Fin not
going into that now, but we had a wonderful
time out there. Hardships in plenty, you
understand, but it was a good life—a hand-tomouth
scramble for existence far from the
beaten track—and, my God that's the place to
know a friend. There was a bond forged
between us two out there that only death
could have broken. Well, as Colonel Race
told you, our efforts were crowned with
success, We found a second Kimberley in the
heart of the British Guiana jungles. I can't
tell you our elation. It wasn't so much the
actual yalue in money of the find—you see,
Eardsley was used to money, and he knew
that wtien his father died he would be a
millionaire, and Lucas had always been poor
and was used to it. No, it was the sheer
delight of discovery."
292
He paused, and then added, almost
apologetically.
"You don't mind my telling it this way, do
you? As though I wasn't in it at all. It seems
like that now when I look back and see those
two boys. I almost forgot that one of them
was—Harry Rayburn."
"Tell it any way you like," I said, and he
went on:
"We came to Kimberley—very cock-a-hoop
over our find. We brought a magnificent
selection of diamonds with us to submit to
the experts. And then—in the hotel at
Kimberley—we met her——"
I stiffened a little, and the hand that rested
on the door-post clenched itself involuntarily.
"Anita Griinberg—that was her name. She
was an actress. Quite young and very
beautiful. She was South African born, but
her mother was a Hungarian, I believe. There
was some sort of mystery about her, and that,
of course, heightened her attraction for two
boys home from the wilds. She must have had
an easy task. We both fell for her right away,
and we both took it hard. It was the first
shadow that had ever come between us—but
even then it didn't weaken our friendship.
Each of us, I honestly believe, was willing to
293
stand aside for the other to go in and win. But
that wasn't her game. Sometimes, afterwards,
I wondered why it hadn't been, for Sir
Laurence Eadsley's only son was quite a
parti. But the truth of it was that she was
married—to a sorter in De Beers'—though
nobody knew of it. She pretended enormous
interest in our discovery, and we told her all
about it and even showed her the diamonds.
Delilah—that's what she should have been
called—and she played her part well!
"The De Beers robbery was discovered,
and like a thunderclap the police came down
upon us. They seized our diamonds. We only
laughed at first—the whole thing was so
absurd. And then the diamonds were
produced in court—and without question
they were the stones stolen from De Beers'.
Anita Griinberg had disappeared. She had
effected the substitution neatly enough, and
our story that these were not the stones
originally in our possession was laughed to
scorn.
"Sir Laurence Eardsley had enormous
influence. He succeeded in getting the case
dismissed—but it left two young men ruined
and disgraced to face the world with the
stigma of thief attached to their name, but it
294
pretty well broke the old fellow's heart. He
had one bitter interview with his son in
which he heaped upon him every reproach
imaginable. He had done what he could to
save the family name, but from that day on
his son was his son no longer. He cast him off
utterly. And the boy, like the proud young
fool that he was, remained silent, disdaining
to protest his innocence in the face of his
father's disbelief. He came out furious from
the interview—his friend was waiting for
him. A week later, war was declared. The two
friends enlisted together. You know what
happened. The best pa
l a man ever had was
killed, partly through his own mad
recklessness in rushing into unnecessary
danger. He died with his name tarnished. . ..
"I swear to you, Anne, that it was mainly
on his account that I was so bitter against that
woman. It had gone deeper with him than
with me. I had been madly in love with her
for the moment—1 even think that I
frightened her sometimes—but with him it
was a quieter and deeper feeling. She had
been the very centre of his universe—and her
betrayal of him tore up the very roots of life.
The blow stunned him and left him
paralysed."
295
RE
Harry paused. After a minute or two he
went on:
"As you know, I was reported "Missing,
presumed killed'. I never troubled to correct
the mistake. I took the name of Parker and
came to this island, which I knew of old. At
the beginning of the War I had had ambitious
hopes of proving my innocence, but now all
that spirit seemed dead. All I felt was,
"What's the good?' My pal was dead, neither
he nor I had any living relations who would
care. I was supposed to be dead too, let it
remain at that. I led a peaceful existence here,
neither happy nor unhappy—numbed of all
feeling. I see now, though I did not realize it
at the time, that that was partly the effect of
the War.
"And then one day something occurred to
wake me right up again. I was taking a party
of people in my boat on a trip up the river,
and I was standing at the landing-stage,
helping them in, when one of the men uttered
a startled exclamation. It focused my
attention to him. He was a small, thin man
with a beard, and he was staring at me for all
he was worth as though I was a ghost. So
powerful was his emotion that it awakened
my curiosity. I made inquiries about him at
296
the hotel a11^ learned that his name was
Carton tha^ he came from Kimberley, and
that he was ^ diamond-sorter employed by De Beers'. In a "imute all the old sense of wrong
surged over rne again. I left the island and
went to Kimberley.
"I could ^d out little more about him, however. It^ ^ enc^ ^ decided that I must
force an int^i^' ^ t00^ my fevolver with
me. In the piet glimpse I had had of him, I
had realized ^at he was a physical coward.
No sooner were we ^ace to ^ace ^an I
recognized ^at he was afraid of me. I soon
forced him to te^ me a^ he knew. He had
engineered Pa^ °^ the robbery and Anita
Grunberg W98 his wife. He had once caught
sight ofboti^ o^us when we were dining with
her at the b01^ anc^ having read that I was
killed, my aPP^1'2111^ in ^e flesh at the Falls
had startled him badly. He and Anita had
married qui^ y01111^? but she had soon drifted
away from ^lln- She had got in with a bad lot, he told me^^d it was then for the first time
that I heard °fthe "Colonel." Carton himself
had never b^" "^i^d up in anything except
this one afl^111'"80 he solemnly assured me, and I was pclined to believe him. He was
297
emphatically not of the stuff of which
successful criminals are made.
"I still had the feeling that he was keeping
back something. As a test, I threatened to
shoot him there and then, declaring that I
cared very little what became of me now. In a
frenzy of terror he poured out a further story.
It seems that Anita Griinberg did not quite
trust the "Colonel." Whilst pretending to
hand over to him the stones she had taken
from the hotel, she kept back some in her
own possession. Carton advised her, with his
technical knowledge, which to keep. If, at any
time, these stones were produced, they were
of such colour and quality as to be readily
identifiable, and the experts at De Beers'
would admit at once that these stones had
never passed through their hands. In this
way, my story of a substitution would be
supported, my name would be cleared, and
suspicion would be diverted to the proper
quarter. I gathered that, contrary to his usual
practice, the "Colonel" himself had been
concerned in this affair, therefore Anita felt
satisfied that she had a real hold over him,
should she need it. Carton now proposed that
I should make a bargain with Anita
Gninberg, or Nadina, as she now called
298
herself. For a sufficient sum of money, he
thought that she would be willing to give up
the diamonds and betray her former
employer. He would cable to her
immediately.
"I was still suspicious of Carton. He was a
man whom it was easy enough to frighten,
but who, in his fright, would tell so many lies
that to sift the truth out from them would be
no easy job. I went back to the hotel and
waited. By the following evening I judged
that he would have received the reply to his
cable. I called round at his house and was told
that Mr. Carton was away, but would be
returning on the morrow. Instantly I became
suspicious. In the nick of time I found out
that he was in reality sailing for England on
the Kilmorden Castle, which left Cape Town
in two day's time. I had just time to journey
down and catch the same boat.
"I had no intention of alarming Carton by
revealing my presence on board. I had done a
good deal of acting in my time at Cambridge,
and it was comparatively easy for me to
transform myself into a grave bearded
gentleman of middle age. I avoided Carton
carefully on board the boat, keeping to my
TMITBS20 299
own cabin as far as possible under the
pretence of illness.
"I had no difficulty in trailing him when
we got to London. He went straight to an
hotel and did not go out until the following
day. He left the hotel shortly before one
o'clock. I was behind him. He went straight
to a house-agent in Knightsbridge. There he
asked for particulars of houses to let on the
river.
"I was at the next table also inquiring about
houses. Then suddenly in walked Anita
Gninberg, Nadina—whatever you like to call
her. Superb, insolent, and almost as beautiful
as ever. God! how I hated her. There she was,
the woman who had ruined my life—and who
had also ruined a better life than mine. At
that minute I could have put my hands round
her neck and squeezed the life out other inch
by inch! Just for a minute or two I saw red. I
hardly took in what the agent was saying. It
was her voice that I heard next, high and
clear, with an exaggerated foreign accent:
&nbs
p; "The Mill House, Marlow. The property of
Sir Eustace Pedler. That sounds as though it
might suit me. At any rate, I will go and see
it.'
"The man wrote her an order, and she
300
walked out again in her regal insolent
manner. Not by word or a sign had she
recognized Carton, yet I was sure that their
meeting there was a preconceived plan. Then
I started to jump to conclusions. Not
knowing that Sir Eustace was at Cannes, I
thought that this house-hunting business was
a mere pretext for meeting him in the Mill
House. I knew that he had been in South
Africa at the time of the robbery, and never
having seen him I immediately leaped to the
conclusion that he himself was the mysterious
"Colonel" of whom I had heard so much.
"I followed my two suspects along
Knightsbridge. Nadina went into the Hyde
Park Hotel. I quickened my pace and went in
also. She walked straight into the restaurant,
and I decided that I would not risk her
recognizing me at the moment, but would
continued to follow Carton. I was in great
hopes that he was going to get the diamonds,
and that by suddenly appearing and making
myself known to him when he least expected
it I might startle the truth out of him. I
followed him down into the Tube station at
Hyde Park Corner. He was standing by
himself at the end of the platform. There was
some girl standing near, but no one else. I
301
decided that I would accost him then and
there. You know what happened. In the
sudden shock of seeing a man whom he
imagined far away in South Africa, he lost his
head and stepped back upon the line. He was
always a coward. Under the pretext of being a
doctor, I managed to search his pockets.
There was a wallet with some notes in it and
one or two unimportant letters, there was a
roll of films—which I must have dropped
somewhere later—and there was a piece of
paper with an appointment made on it for the
22nd on the Kilmorden Castle. In my haste to
get away before anyone detained me, I
dropped that also, but fortunately I
remembered the figures.
"I hurried to the nearest cloak-room and
hastily removed my make-up. I did not want
to be laid by the heels for picking a dead
man's pocket. Then I retraced my steps to the
AgathaChristie-TheManInTheBrownSuit Page 22