The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie [i like reading books txt] 📗

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 afraid, especially as he did not move aside, but stood directly in front of me, staring into my face.

“What are you really doing here, Anne Beddingfeld?” he said abruptly.

“I’m a gipsy seeing the world.”

“Yes, that’s true enough. The newspaper correspondent is only a pretext. You’ve not the soul of the journalist. You’re out for your own hand—snatching at life. But that’s not all.”

What was he going to make me tell him? I was afraid—afraid. I looked him full in the face. My eyes can’t keep secrets like his, but they can carry the war into the enemy’s country.

“What are you really doing here, Colonel Race?” I asked deliberately.

For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer. He was clearly taken aback, though. At last he spoke, and his words seemed to afford him a grim amusement.

“Pursuing ambition,” he said. “Just that—pursuing ambition. You will remember, Miss Beddingfeld, that ‘by that sin fell the angels,’ etc.”

“They say,” I said slowly, “that you are really connected with the Government—that you are in the Secret Service. Is that true?”

Was it my fancy, or did he hesitate for a fraction of a second before he answered?

“I can assure you, Miss Beddingfeld, that I am out here strictly as a private individual travelling for my own pleasure.”

Thinking the answer over later, it struck me as slightly ambiguous. Perhaps he meant it to be so.

We rejoined the car in silence. Half-way back to Bulawayo we stopped for tea at a somewhat primitive structure at the side of the road. The proprietor was digging in the garden and seemed annoyed at being disturbed. But he graciously promised to see what he could do. After an interminable wait he brought us some stale cakes and some lukewarm tea. Then he disappeared to his garden again.

No sooner had he departed than we were surrounded by cats. Six of them all miaowing piteously at once. The racket was deafening. I offered them some pieces of cake. They devoured them ravenously. I poured all the milk there was into a saucer and they fought each other to get it.

“Oh,” I cried indignantly, “they’re starved! It’s wicked. Please, please, order some more milk and another plate of cake.”

Colonel Race departed silently to do my bidding. The cats had begun miaowing again. He returned with a big jug of milk and the cats finished it all.

I got up with determination on my face.

“I’m going to take those cats home with us—I shan’t leave them here.”

“My dear child, don’t be absurd. You can’t carry six cats as well as fifty wooden animals round with you.”

“Never mind the wooden animals. These cats are alive. I shall take them back with me.”

“You will do nothing of the kind.” I looked at him resentfully, but he went on: “You think me cruel—but one can’t go through life sentimentalizing over these things. It’s no good standing out—I shan’t allow you to take them. It’s a primitive country, you know, and I’m stronger than you.”

I always know when I am beaten. I went down to the car with tears in my eyes.

“They’re probably short of food just to-day,” he explained consolingly. “That man’s wife has gone into Bulawayo for stores. So it will be all right. And anyway, you know, the world’s full of starving cats.”

“Don’t—don’t,” I said fiercely.

“I’m teaching you to realize life as it is. I’m teaching you to be hard and ruthless—like I am. That’s the secret of strength—and the secret of success.”

“I’d sooner be dead than hard,” I said passionately.

We got into the car and started off. I pulled myself together again slowly. Suddenly, to my intense astonishment, he took my hand in his.

“Anne,” he said gently, “I want you. Will you marry me?”

I was utterly taken aback.

“Oh, no,” I stammered. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t care for you in that way. I’ve never thought of you like that.”

“I see. Is that the only reason?”

I had to be honest. I owed it him.

“No,” I said, “it is not. You see—I—care for some one else.”

“I see,” he said again. “And was that true at the beginning—when I first saw you—on the Kilmorden?”

“No,” I whispered. “It was—since then.”

“I see,” he said for the third time, but this time there was a purposeful ring in his voice that made me turn and look at him. His face was grimmer than I had ever seen it.

“What—what do you mean?” I faltered.

He looked at me, inscrutable, dominating.

“Only—that I know now what I have to do.”

His words sent a shiver through me. There was a determination behind them that I did not understand—and it frightened me.

We neither of us said any more until we got back to the hotel. I went straight up to Suzanne. She was lying on her bed reading, and did not look in the least as though she had a headache.

“Here reposes the perfect gooseberry,” she remarked. “Alias the tactful chaperone. Why, Anne dear, what’s the matter?”

For I had burst into a flood of tears.

I told her about the cats—I felt it wasn’t fair to tell her about Colonel Race. But Suzanne is very sharp. I think she saw that there was something more behind.

“You haven’t caught a chill, have you, Anne? Sounds absurd even to suggest such things in this heat, but you keep on shivering.”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Nerves—or some one walking over my grave. I keep feeling something dreadful’s going to happen.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Suzanne, with decision. “Let’s talk of something interesting. Anne, about those diamonds——”

“What about them?”

“I’m not sure they’re safe with me. It was all right before, no one could think they’d be amongst my things. But now that every one knows we’re such friends, you and I, I’ll be under suspicion too.”

“Nobody knows they’re in a roll of films, though,” I argued. “It’s a splendid hiding-place