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

His tone seemed to indicate that such a thing was unlikely in the extreme. I felt my temper stirred.

“Of course you know about the man who was killed in the Tube? The man who had an order to view this same house at Marlow in his pocket.”

“Ah!” said the inspector. “You are the Miss Beddingfeld who gave evidence at the inquest. Certainly the man had an order in his pocket. A lot of other people may have had too—only they didn’t happen to be killed.”

I rallied my forces.

“You don’t think it odd that this man had no ticket in his pocket?”

“Easiest thing in the world to drop your ticket. Done it myself.”

“And no money.”

“He had some loose change in his trousers pocket.”

“But no notecase.”

“Some men don’t carry a pocket-book or notecase of any kind.”

I tried another tack.

“You don’t think it’s odd that the doctor never came forward afterwards?”

“A busy medical man very often doesn’t read the papers. He probably forgot all about the accident.”

“In fact, inspector, you are determined to find nothing odd,” I said sweetly.

“Well, I’m inclined to think you’re a little too fond of the word, Miss Beddingfeld. Young ladies are romantic, I know—fond of mysteries and such-like. But as I’m a busy man——”

I took the hint and rose.

The man in the corner raised a meek voice.

“Perhaps the young lady would tell us briefly what her ideas really are on the subject, inspector?”

The inspector fell in with the suggestion readily enough.

“Yes, come now, Miss Beddingfeld, don’t be offended. You’ve asked questions and hinted things. Just say straight out what it is you’ve got in your head.”

I wavered between injured dignity and the overwhelming desire to express my theories. Injured dignity went to the wall.

“You said at the inquest you were positive it wasn’t suicide?”

“Yes, I’m quite certain of that. The man was frightened. What frightened him? It wasn’t me. But some one might have been walking up the platform towards us—some one he recognized.”

“You didn’t see any one?”

“No,” I admitted. “I didn’t turn my head. Then, as soon as the body was recovered from the line, a man pushed forward to examine it, saying he was a doctor.”

“Nothing unusual in that,” said the inspector dryly.

“But he wasn’t a doctor.”

“What?”

“He wasn’t a doctor,” I repeated.

“How do you know that, Miss Beddingfeld?”

“It’s difficult to say, exactly. I’ve worked in Hospital during the war, and I’ve seen doctors handle bodies. There’s a sort of deft professional callousness that this man hadn’t got. Besides, a doctor doesn’t usually feel for the heart on the right side of the body.”

“He did that?”

“Yes, I didn’t notice it specially at the time—except that I felt there was something wrong. But I worked it out when I got home, and then I saw why the whole thing had looked so unhandy to me at the time.”

“H’m,” said the inspector. He was reaching slowly for pen and paper.

“In running his hands over the upper part of the man’s body he would have ample opportunity to take anything he wanted from the pockets.”

“Doesn’t sound likely to me,” said the inspector. “But—well, can you describe him at all?”

“He was tall and broad-shouldered, wore a dark overcoat and black boots, a bowler hat. He had a dark pointed beard and gold-rimmed eyeglasses.”

“Take away the overcoat, the beard and the eyeglasses, and there wouldn’t be much to know him by,” grumbled the inspector. “He could alter his appearance easy enough in five minutes if he wanted to—which he would do if he’s the swell pickpocket you suggest.”

I had not intended to suggest anything of the kind. But from this moment I gave the inspector up as hopeless.

“Nothing more you can tell us about him?” he demanded, as I rose to depart.

“Yes,” I said. I seized my opportunity to fire a parting shot. “His head was markedly brachycephalic. He will not find it so easy to alter that.”

I observed with pleasure that Inspector Meadow’s pen wavered. It was clear that he did not know how to spell brachycephalic.

In the first heat of indignation I found my next step unexpectedly easy to tackle. I had had a half-formed plan in my head when I went into Scotland Yard. One to be carried out if my interview there was unsatisfactory (it had been profoundly unsatisfactory). That is, if I had the nerve to go through with it.

Things that one would shrink from attempting normally are easily tackled in a flush of anger. Without giving myself time to reflect, I walked straight to the house of Lord Nasby.

Lord Nasby was the millionaire owner of the Daily Budget. He owned other papers—several of them, but the Daily Budget was his special child. It was as the owner of the Daily Budget that he was known to every householder in the United Kingdom. Owing to the fact that an itinerary of the great man’s daily proceedings had just been published, I knew exactly where to find him at this moment. It was his hour for dictating to his secretary in his own house.

I did not, of course, suppose that any young woman who chose to come and ask for him would be at once admitted to the august presence. But I had attended to that side of the matter. In the card-tray in the hall of the Flemmings’ house I had observed the card of the Marquis of Loamsley, England’s most famous sporting peer. I had removed the card, cleaned it carefully with bread-crumbs, and pencilled upon it the words: “Please give Miss Beddingfeld a few moments of your time.” Adventuresses must not be too scrupulous in their methods.

The thing worked. A powdered footman received the card and bore it away. Presently a pale secretary appeared. I fenced with him successfully. He retired defeated. He again reappeared and begged me to follow him. I did so. I entered a large room, a frightened-looking shorthand-typist fled past me like a visitant from the spirit-world. Then the door shut and I was face to face with Lord Nasby.

A big man. Big head. Big face. Big moustache. Big stomach. I pulled myself together. I had not come here to comment on Lord Nasby’s stomach. He was already roaring at me.

“Well, what is it? What does Loamsley want? You his secretary? What’s it all about?”

“To begin with,” I said with as great an appearance of coolness as I could manage, “I don’t know Lord Loamsley, and he certainly knows nothing about me. I took his card from the tray in the house of the people I’m staying with, and I wrote those words on it myself. It was important that I should see you.”

For a moment it appeared to be a toss up as to whether Lord Nasby had apoplexy or not. In the end, he swallowed twice and got over it.

“I admire your coolness, young woman. Well, you see me! If you interest me, you will continue to see me for exactly two minutes longer.”

“That will be ample,” I replied. “And I shall interest you. It’s the Mill House Mystery.”

“If you’ve found ‘The Man in the Brown Suit,’ write to the Editor,” he interrupted hastily.

“If you will interrupt, I shall be more than two minutes,” I said sternly. “I haven’t found ‘The Man in the Brown Suit,’ but I’m quite likely to do so.”

In as few words as possible I put the facts of the Tube accident and the conclusions I had drawn from them before him. When I had finished he said unexpectedly:

“What do you know of brachycephalic heads?”

I mentioned Papa.

“The Monkey man? Eh? Well, you seem to have a head of some kind upon your own shoulders, young woman. But it’s all pretty thin, you know. Not much to go upon. And no use to us—as it stands.”

“I’m perfectly aware of that.”

“What d’you want, then?”

“I want a job on your paper to investigate this matter.”

“Can’t do that. We’ve got our own special man on it.”

“And I’ve got my own special knowledge.”

“What you’ve just told me, eh?”

“Oh, no, Lord Nasby. I’ve still got something up my sleeve.”

“Oh, you have, have you? You seem a bright sort of girl. Well, what is it?”

“When this so-called doctor got into the lift, he dropped a piece of paper. I picked it up. It smelt of moth balls. So did the dead man. The doctor didn’t. So I saw at once that the doctor must have taken it off the body. It had two words written on it and some figures.”

“Let’s see it.”

Lord Nasby stretched out a careless hand.

“I think not,” I said, smiling. “It’s my find, you see.”

“I’m right. You are a bright girl. Quite right to hang on to it. No scruples about not handing it over to the police?”

“I went there to do so this morning. They persisted in regarding the whole thing as having nothing to do with the Marlow affair, so I thought that in the circumstances I was justified in retaining the paper. Besides, the inspector put my back up.”

“Short-sighted man. Well, my dear girl, here’s all I can do for you. Go on working on this line of yours. If you get anything—anything that’s publishable—send it along and you shall have your chance. There’s always room for real talent on the Daily Budget. But you’ve got to make good first. See?”

I thanked him, and apologized for my methods.

“Don’t mention it. I rather like cheek—from a pretty girl. By the way, you said two minutes and you’ve been three, allowing for interruptions. For a woman, that’s quite remarkable! Must be your scientific training.”

I was in the street again, breathing hard as though I had been running. I found Lord Nasby rather wearing as a new acquaintance.

I went home with a feeling of exultation. My scheme had succeeded far better than I could possibly have hoped. Lord Nasby had been positively genial. It only now remained for me to “Make good,” as he expressed it. Once locked in my own room, I took out my precious piece of paper and studied it attentively. Here was the clue to the mystery.

To begin with, what did the figures represent? There were five of them, and a dot after the first two. “Seventeen—one hundred and twenty-two,” I murmured.

That did not seem to lead to anything.

Next I added them up. That is often done in works of fiction and leads to surprising deductions.

“One and seven make eight and one is nine and two are eleven and two are thirteen.”

Thirteen! Fateful number! Was this a warning to me to leave the whole thing alone? Very possibly. Anyway, except as a warning, it seemed to be singularly useless. I declined to believe that any conspirator would take that way of writing thirteen in real life. If he meant thirteen, he would write thirteen. “13”—like that.

There was a space between the one and the two. I accordingly subtracted twenty-two from a hundred and seventy-one. The result was a hundred and fifty-nine. I did it again and made it a hundred and forty-nine. These arithmetical exercises were doubtless excellent practice, but as regarded the solution of the mystery, they seemed totally ineffectual. I left arithmetic alone, not attempting fancy division or multiplication, and went on to the words.

Kilmorden Castle. That was something definite. A place. Probably the cradle of an aristocratic family. (Missing heir? Claimant to title?) Or possibly a picturesque ruin. (Buried treasure?)

Yes, on the whole I inclined to the theory of buried treasure. Figures always go with buried treasure. One pace to the right, seven paces to the left, dig one foot, descend twenty-two steps. That sort of idea. I could work out that later. The thing was to get to Kilmorden Castle as quickly as possible.

I made a strategic sally from my room and returned laden with books of reference. Who’s Who, Whitaker, a Gazetteer, a History of Scotch Ancestral Homes, and Somebody or other’s British Isles.

Time passed. I