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

“It’s extremely kind of you,” I said. “But it’s impossible. I could never marry a man unless I loved him madly.”

“You don’t think——?”

“No, I don’t,” I said firmly.

He sighed.

“But, my dear child, what do you propose to do?”

“Have adventures and see the world,” I replied, without the least hesitation.

“Miss Anne, you are very much of a child still. You don’t understand——”

“The practical difficulties? Yes, I do, doctor. I’m not a sentimental schoolgirl—I’m a hard-headed mercenary shrew! You’d know it if you married me!”

“I wish you would reconsider——”

“I can’t.”

He sighed again.

“I have another proposal to make. An aunt of mine who lives in Wales is in want of a young lady to help her. How would that suit you?”

“No, doctor, I’m going to London. If things happen anywhere, they happen in London. I shall keep my eyes open and you’ll see, something will turn up! You’ll hear of me next in China or Timbuctoo.”

My next visitor was Mr. Flemming, Papa’s London solicitor. He came down specially from town to see me. An ardent anthropologist himself, he was a great admirer of Papa’s works. He was a tall, spare man with a thin face and grey hair. He rose to meet me as I entered the room and, taking both my hands in his, patted them affectionately.

“My poor child,” he said. “My poor, poor child.”

Without conscious hypocrisy, I found myself assuming the demeanour of a bereaved orphan. He hypnotized me into it. He was benignant, kind and fatherly—and without the least doubt he regarded me as a perfect fool of a girl left adrift to face an unkind world. From the first I felt that it was quite useless to try to convince him of the contrary. As things turned out, perhaps it was just as well I didn’t.

“My dear child, do you think you can listen to me whilst I try to make a few things clear to you?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Your father, as you know, was a very great man. Posterity will appreciate him. But he was not a good man of business.”

I knew that quite as well, if not better than Mr. Flemming, but I restrained myself from saying so. He continued:

“I do not suppose you understand much of these matters. I will try to explain as clearly as I can.”

He explained at unnecessary length. The upshot seemed to be that I was left to face life with the sum of £87, 17s. 4d. It seemed a strangely unsatisfying amount. I waited in some trepidation for what was coming next. I feared that Mr. Flemming would be sure to have an aunt in Scotland who was in want of a bright young companion. Apparently, however, he hadn’t.

“The question is,” he went on, “the future. I understand you have no living relatives?”

“I’m alone in the world,” I said, and was struck anew by my likeness to a film heroine.

“You have friends?”

“Every one has been very kind to me,” I said gratefully.

“Who would not be kind to one so young and charming?” said Mr. Flemming gallantly. “Well, well, my dear, we must see what can be done.” He hesitated a minute, and then said: “Supposing—how would it be if you came to us for a time?”

I jumped at the chance. London! The place for things to happen.

“It’s awfully kind of you,” I said. “Might I really? Just while I’m looking round. I must start out to earn my living, you know?”

“Yes, yes, my dear child. I quite understand. We will look round for something—suitable.”

I felt instinctively that Mr. Flemming’s ideas of “something suitable” and mine were likely to be widely divergent, but it was certainly not the moment to air my views.

“That is settled then. Why not return with me to-day?”

“Oh, thank you, but will Mrs. Flemming——”

“My wife will be delighted to welcome you.”

I wonder if husbands know as much about their wives as they think they do. If I had a husband, I should hate him to bring home orphans without consulting me first.

“We will send her a wire from the station,” continued the lawyer.

My few personal belongings were soon packed. I contemplated my hat sadly before putting it on. It had originally been what I call a “Mary” hat, meaning by that the kind of hat a housemaid ought to wear on her day out—but doesn’t! A limp thing of black straw with a suitably depressed brim. With the inspiration of genius, I had kicked it once, punched it twice, dented in the crown and affixed to it a thing like a cubist’s dream of a jazz carrot. The result had been distinctly chic. The carrot I had already removed, of course, and now I proceeded to undo the rest of my handiwork. The “Mary” hat resumed its former status with an additional battered appearance which made it even more depressing than formerly. I might as well look as much like the popular conception of an orphan as possible. I was just a shade nervous of Mrs. Flemming’s reception, but hoped my appearance might have a sufficiently disarming effect.

Mr. Flemming was nervous too. I realized that as we went up the stairs of the tall house in a quiet Kensington Square. Mrs. Flemming greeted me pleasantly enough. She was a stout, placid woman of the “good wife and mother” type. She took me up to a spotless chintz-hung bedroom, hoped I had everything I wanted, informed me that tea would be ready in about a quarter of an hour, and left me to my own devices.

I heard her voice, slightly raised, as she entered the drawing-room below on the first floor.

“Well, Henry, why on earth——” I lost the rest, but the acerbity of the tone was evident. And a few minutes later another phrase floated up to me, in an even more acid voice:

“I agree with you! She is certainly very good-looking.”

It is really a very hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.

With a deep sigh I proceeded to do things to my hair. I have nice hair. It is black—a real black, not dark brown, and it grows well back from my forehead and down over the ears. With a ruthless hand I dragged it upwards. As ears, my ears are quite all right, but there is no doubt about it, ears are démodé nowadays. They are like the “Queen of Spain’s legs” in Professor Peterson’s young day. When I had finished I looked almost unbelievably like the kind of orphan that walks out in a queue with a little bonnet and a red cloak.

I noticed when I went down that Mrs. Flemming’s eyes rested on my exposed ears with quite a kindly glance. Mr. Flemming seemed puzzled. I had no doubt that he was saying to himself, “What has the child done to herself?”

On the whole the rest of the day passed off well. It was settled that I was to start at once to look for something to do.

When I went to bed, I stared earnestly at my face in the glass. Was I really good-looking? Honestly, I couldn’t say I thought so! I hadn’t got a straight Grecian nose, or a rosebud mouth, or any of the things you ought to have. It is true that a curate once told me that my eyes were like “imprisoned sunshine in a dark, dark wood”—but curates always know so many quotations, and fire them off at random. I’d much prefer to have Irish blue eyes than dark green ones with yellow flecks! Still, green is a good colour for adventuresses.

I wound a black garment tightly round me, leaving my arms and shoulders bare. Then I brushed back my hair and pulled it well down over my ears again. I put a lot of powder on my face, so that the skin seemed even whiter than usual. I fished about until I found some old lip-salve, and I put oceans of it on my lips. Then I did under my eyes with burnt cork. Finally, I draped a red ribbon over my bare shoulder, stuck a scarlet feather in my hair, and placed a cigarette in one corner of my mouth. The whole effect pleased me very much.

“Anna the Adventuress,” I said aloud, nodding at my reflection. “Anna the Adventuress. Episode I, ‘The House in Kensington’!”

Girls are foolish things.

In the succeeding weeks I was a good deal bored.

Mrs. Flemming and her friends seemed to me to be supremely uninteresting. They talked for hours of themselves and their children and of the difficulties of getting good milk for the children and of what they said to the Dairy when the milk wasn’t good. Then they would go on to servants, and the difficulties of getting good servants and of what they had said to the woman at the Registry Office and of what the woman at the Registry Office had said to them. They never seemed to read the papers or to care about what went on in the world. They disliked travelling—everything was so different to England. The Riviera was all right, of course, because one met all one’s friends there.

I listened and contained myself with difficulty. Most of these women were rich. The whole wide beautiful world was theirs to wander in and they deliberately stayed in dirty dull London and talked about milkmen and servants! I think now, looking back, that I was perhaps a shade intolerant. But they were stupid—stupid even at their chosen job: most of them kept the most extraordinarily inadequate and muddled housekeeping accounts.

My affairs did not progress very fast. The house and furniture had been sold, and the amount realized had just covered our debts. As yet, I had not been successful in finding a post. Not that I really wanted one! I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking for adventure, adventure would meet me halfway. It is a theory of mine that one always gets what one wants. My theory was about to be proved in practice.

It was early in January—the 8th, to be exact. I was returning from an unsuccessful interview with a lady who said she wanted a secretary-companion, but really seemed to require a strong charwoman who would work twelve hours a day for £25 a year. Having parted with mutual veiled impolitenesses, I walked down Edgware Road (the interview had taken place in a house in St. John’s Wood) and across Hyde Park to St. George’s Hospital. There I entered Hyde Park Corner Tube Station and took a ticket to Gloucester Road.

Once on the platform I walked to the extreme end of it. My inquiring mind wished to satisfy itself as to whether there really were points and an opening between the two tunnels just beyond the station in the direction of Down Street. I was foolishly pleased to find I was right. There were not many people on the platform, and at the extreme end there was only myself and one man. As I passed him, I sniffed dubiously. If there is one smell I cannot bear it is that of moth balls! This man’s heavy overcoat simply reeked of them. And yet most men begin to wear their winter overcoats before January, and consequently by this time the smell ought to have worn off. The man was beyond me, standing close to the edge of the tunnel. He seemed lost in thought, and I was able to stare at him without rudeness. He was a small thin man, very brown of face, with light blue eyes and a small dark beard.

“Just come from abroad,” I deduced. “That’s why his overcoat smells so. He’s come from India. Not an officer, or he wouldn’t have a beard. Perhaps a tea-planter.”

At this moment the man turned as though to retrace his steps along the platform. He glanced at me and then his eyes went