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

“I wanted those cursed diamonds. Nadina, the little devil, was playing off your Harry against me. Unless I gave her the price she wanted, she threatened to sell them back to him. That was another mistake I made⁠—I thought she’d have them with her that day. But she was too clever for that. Carton, her husband, was dead too⁠—I’d no clue whatsoever as to where the diamonds were hidden. Then I managed to get a copy of a wireless message sent to Nadina by someone on board the Kilmorden⁠—either Carton or Rayburn, I didn’t know which. It was a duplicate of that piece of paper you picked up. ‘Seventeen one twenty two,’ it ran. I took it to be an appointment with Rayburn, and when he was so desperate to get aboard the Kilmorden I was convinced that I was right. So I pretended to swallow his statements, and let him come. I kept a pretty sharp watch upon him and hoped that I should learn more. Then I found Minks trying to play a lone hand and interfering with me. I soon stopped that. He came to heel all right. It was annoying not getting cabin 17, and it worried me not being able to place you. Were you the innocent young girl you seemed, or were you not? When Rayburn set out to keep the appointment that night, Minks was told off to intercept him. Minks muffed it of course.”

“But why did the wireless message say ‘seventeen’ instead of ‘seventy-one’?”

“I’ve thought that out. Carton must have given that wireless operator his own memorandum to copy off on to a form, and he never read the copy through. The operator made the same mistake we all did, and read it as 17.1.22 instead of 1.71.22. The thing I don’t know is how Minks got on to cabin 17. It must have been sheer instinct.”

“And the dispatch to General Smuts? Who tampered with that?”

“My dear Anne, you don’t suppose I was going to have a lot of my plans given away, without making an effort to save them? With an escaped murderer as a secretary, I had no hesitation whatever in substituting blanks. Nobody would think of suspecting poor old Pedler.”

“What about Colonel Race?”

“Yes, that was a nasty jar. When Pagett told me he was a secret service fellow, I had an unpleasant feeling down the spine. I remembered that he’d been nosing around Nadina in Paris during the War⁠—and I had a horrible suspicion that he was out after me! I don’t like the way he’s stuck to me ever since. He’s one of those strong, silent men who have always got something up their sleeve.”

A whistle sounded. Sir Eustace picked up the tube, listened for a minute or two, then answered:

“Very well, I’ll see him now.”

“Business,” he remarked. “Miss Anne, let me show you your room.”

He ushered me into a small shabby apartment, a Kafir boy brought up my small suitcase, and Sir Eustace, urging me to ask for anything I wanted, withdrew, the picture of a courteous host. A can of hot water was on the washstand, and I proceeded to unpack a few necessaries. Something hard and unfamiliar in my sponge bag puzzled me greatly. I untied the string and looked inside.

To my utter amazement I drew out a small pearl-handled revolver. It hadn’t been there when I started from Kimberley. I examined the thing gingerly. It appeared to be loaded.

I handled it with a comfortable feeling. It was a useful thing to have in a house such as this. But modern clothes are quite unsuited to the carrying of firearms. In the end I pushed it gingerly into the top of my stocking. It made a terrible bulge, and I expected every minute that it would go off and shoot me in the leg, but it really seemed the only place.

I was not summoned to Sir Eustace’s presence until late in the afternoon. Eleven o’clock tea and a substantial lunch had been served to me in my own apartment, and I felt fortified for further conflict.

Sir Eustace was alone. He was walking up and down the room, and there was a gleam in his eye and a restlessness in his manner which did not escape me. He was exultant about something. There was a subtle change in his manner towards me.

“I have news for you. Your young man is on his way. He will be here in a few minutes. Moderate your transports⁠—I have something more to say. You attempted to deceive me this morning. I warned you that you would be wise to stick to the truth, and up to a certain point you obeyed me. Then you ran off the rails. You attempted to make me believe that the diamonds were in Harry Rayburn’s possession. At the time, I accepted your statement because it facilitated my task⁠—the task of inducing you to decoy Harry Rayburn here. But, my dear Anne, the diamonds have been in my possession ever since I left the falls⁠—though I only discovered the fact yesterday.”

“You know!” I gasped.

“It may interest you to hear that it was Pagett who gave the show away. He insisted on boring me with a long pointless story about a wager and a tin of films. It didn’t take me long to put two and two together⁠—Mrs. Blair’s distrust of Colonel Race, her agitation, her entreaty that I would take care of her souvenirs for her. The excellent Pagett had already unfastened the cases through an excess of zeal. Before leaving the hotel, I simply transferred all the rolls of films to my own pocket. They are in the corner there. I admit that I haven’t had time to examine them yet, but I notice that one is of a totally different weight to the others, rattles in a peculiar fashion, and has evidently been stuck down with seccotine, which will necessitate the use