The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie [free e novels TXT] 📗

proceeded to bore me with a long pointless story about the Kilmorden. It was about a roll of films and a wager. The roll of films being thrown through a porthole in the middle of the night by some steward who ought to have known better. I hate horseplay. I told Pagett so, and he began to tell me the story all over again. He tells a story extremely badly, anyway. It was a long time before I could make head or tail of this one.

I did not see him again until lunchtime. Then he came in brimming over with excitement, like a bloodhound on the scent. I never have cared for bloodhounds. The upshot of it all was that he had seen Rayburn.

“What?” I cried, startled.

Yes, he had caught sight of someone whom he was sure was Rayburn crossing the street. Pagett had followed him.

“And who do you think I saw him stop and speak to? Miss Pettigrew!”

“What?”

“Yes, Sir Eustace. And that’s not all. I’ve been making inquiries about her⁠—”

“Wait a bit. What happened to Rayburn?”

“He and Miss Pettigrew went into that corner curio shop⁠—”

I uttered an involuntary exclamation. Pagett stopped inquiringly.

“Nothing,” I said. “Go on.”

“I waited outside for ages⁠—but they didn’t come out. At last I went in. Sir Eustace, there was no one in the shop! There must be another way out.”

I stared at him.

“As I was saying, I came back to the hotel and made some inquiries about Miss Pettigrew.” Pagett lowered his voice and breathed hard as he always does when he wants to be confidential. “Sir Eustace, a man was seen coming out of her room last night.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“And I always regarded her as a lady of such eminent respectability,” I murmured.

Pagett went on without heeding.

“I went straight up and searched her room. What do you think I found?”

I shook my head.

“This!”

Pagett held up a safety razor and a stick of shaving soap.

“What should a woman want with these?”

I don’t suppose Pagett ever reads the advertisements in the high-class ladies’ papers. I do. Whilst not proposing to argue with him on the subject, I refused to accept the presence of the razor as proof positive of Miss Pettigrew’s sex. Pagett is so hopelessly behind the times. I should not have been at all surprised if he had produced a cigarette case to support his theory. However, even Pagett has his limits.

“You’re not convinced, Sir Eustace. What do you say to this?”

I inspected the article which he dangled aloft triumphantly.

“It looks like hair,” I remarked distastefully.

“It is hair. I think it’s what they call a toupee.”

“Indeed,” I commented.

“Now are you convinced that that Pettigrew woman is a man in disguise?”

“Really, my dear Pagett, I think I am. I might have known it by her feet.”

“Then that’s that. And now, Sir Eustace, I want to speak to you about my private affairs. I cannot doubt, from your hints and your continual allusions to the time I was in Florence, that you have found me out.”

At last the mystery of what Pagett did in Florence is going to be revealed!

“Make a clean breast of it, my dear fellow,” I said kindly. “Much the best way.”

“Thank you, Sir Eustace.”

“Is it her husband? Annoying fellows, husbands. Always turning up when they’re least expected.”

“I fail to follow you, Sir Eustace. Whose husband?”

“The lady’s husband.”

“What lady?”

“God bless my soul, Pagett, the lady you met in Florence. There must have been a lady. Don’t tell me that you merely robbed a church or stabbed an Italian in the back because you didn’t like his face.”

“I am quite at a loss to understand you, Sir Eustace. I suppose you are joking.”

“I am an amusing fellow sometimes, when I take the trouble, but I can assure you that I am not trying to be funny this minute.”

“I hoped that as I was a good way off you had not recognized me, Sir Eustace.”

“Recognized you where?”

“At Marlow, Sir Eustace?”

“At Marlow? What the devil were you doing at Marlow?”

“I thought you understood that⁠—”

“I’m beginning to understand less and less. Go back to the beginning of the story and start again. You went to Florence⁠—”

“Then you don’t know after all⁠—and you didn’t recognize me!”

“As far as I can judge, you seem to have given yourself away needlessly⁠—made a coward of by your conscience. But I shall be able to tell better when I’ve heard the whole story. Now, then, take a deep breath and start again. You went to Florence⁠ ⁠…”

“But I didn’t go to Florence. That is just it.”

“Well, where did you go, then?”

“I went home⁠—to Marlow.”

“What the devil did you want to go to Marlow for?”

“I wanted to see my wife. She was in delicate health and expecting⁠—”

“Your wife? But I didn’t know you were married?”

“No, Sir Eustace, that is just what I am telling you. I deceived you in this matter.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Just over eight years. I had been married just six months when I became your secretary. I did not want to lose the post. A resident secretary is not supposed to have a wife, so I suppressed the fact.”

“You take my breath away,” I remarked. “Where has she been all these years?”

“We have had a small bungalow on the river at Marlow, quite close to the Mill House, for over five years.”

“God bless my soul,” I muttered. “Any children?”

“Four children, Sir Eustace.”

I gazed at him in a kind of stupor. I might have known, all along, that a man like Pagett couldn’t have a guilty secret. The respectability of Pagett has always been my bane. That’s just the kind of secret he would have⁠—a wife and four children.

“Have you told this to anyone else?” I demanded at last, when I had gazed at him in fascinated interest for quite a long while.

“Only Miss Beddingfeld. She came to the station at Kimberley.”

I continued to stare at him. He fidgeted under my glance.

“I hope, Sir Eustace, that you are not seriously annoyed?”

“My dear fellow,” I said, “I don’t mind