The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (popular e readers txt) đź“•
Read free book «The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (popular e readers txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Agatha Christie
Read book online «The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie (popular e readers txt) 📕». Author - Agatha Christie
“I saw Nadina in Paris the night before she went over to England. I was posing at the time as a Russian Count. She told me of her purpose. I warned her, knowing what kind of man she had to deal with, but she did not take my advice. There was a wireless message on the table. I read it. Afterwards I thought I would have a try for the diamonds myself. In Johannesburg, Mr. Rayburn accosted me. He persuaded me to come over to his side.”
Sir Eustace looked at him. He said nothing, but Minks seemed visibly to wilt.
“Rats always leaving a sinking ship,” observed Sir Eustace. “I don’t care for rats. Sooner or later, I destroy vermin.”
“There’s just one thing I’d like to tell you, Sir Eustace,” I remarked. “That tin you threw out of the window didn’t contain the diamonds. It had common pebbles in it. The diamonds are in a perfectly safe place. As a matter of fact, they’re in the big giraffe’s stomach. Suzanne hollowed it out, put the diamonds in with cotton wool, so that they wouldn’t rattle, and plugged it up again.”
Sir Eustace looked at me for some time. His reply was characteristic:
“I always did hate that blinking giraffe,” he said. “It must have been instinct.”
We were not able to return to Johannesburg that night. The shells were coming over pretty fast, and I gathered that we were now more or less cut off, owing to the rebels having obtained possession of a new part of the suburbs.
Our place of refuge was a farm some twenty miles or so from Johannesburg—right out on the veld. I was dropping with fatigue. All the excitement and anxiety of the last two days had left me little better than a limp rag.
I kept repeating to myself, without being able to believe it, that our troubles were really over. Harry and I were together and we should never be separated again. Yet all through I was conscious of some barrier between us—a constraint on his part, the reason of which I could not fathom.
Sir Eustace had been driven off in an opposite direction accompanied by a strong guard. He waved his hand airily to us on departing.
I came out on to the stoep early on the following morning and looked across the veld in the direction of Johannesburg. I could see the great dumps glistening in the pale morning sunshine, and I could hear the low rumbling mutter of the guns. The Revolution was not over yet.
The farmer’s wife came out and called me in to breakfast. She was a kind, motherly soul, and I was already very fond of her. Harry had gone out at dawn and had not yet returned, so she informed me. Again I felt a stir of uneasiness pass over me. What was this shadow of which I was so conscious between us?
After breakfast I sat out on the stoep, a book in my hand which I did not read. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I never saw Colonel Race ride up and dismount from his horse. It was not until he said “Good morning, Anne,” that I became aware of his presence.
“Oh,” I said, with a flush, “it’s you.”
“Yes. May I sit down?”
He drew a chair up beside me. It was the first time we had been alone together since that day at the Matoppos. As always, I felt that curious mixture of fascination and fear that he never failed to inspire in me.
“What is the news?” I asked.
“Smuts will be in Johannesburg to-morrow. I give this outbreak three days more before it collapses utterly. In the meantime the fighting goes on.”
“I wish,” I said, “that one could be sure that the right people were the ones to get killed. I mean the ones who wanted to fight—not just all the poor people who happen to live in the parts where the fighting is going on.”
He nodded.
“I know what you mean, Anne. That’s the unfairness of war. But I’ve other news for you.”
“Yes?”
“A confession of incompetency on my part. Pedler has managed to escape.”
“What?”
“Yes. No one knows how he managed it. He was securely locked up for the night—in an upper-story room of one of the farms roundabouts which the Military have taken over, but this morning the room was empty and the bird had flown.”
Secretly I was rather pleased. Never, to this day, have I been able to rid myself of a sneaking fondness for Sir Eustace. I dare say it’s reprehensible, but there it is. I admired him. He was a thorough-going villain, I dare say—but he was a pleasant one. I’ve never met any one half so amusing since.
I concealed my feelings, of course. Naturally Colonel Race would feel quite differently about it. He wanted Sir Eustace brought to justice. There was nothing very surprising in his escape when one came to think of it. All round Jo’burg he must have innumerable spies and agents. And, whatever Colonel Race might think, I was exceedingly doubtful that they would ever catch him. He probably had a well-planned line of retreat. Indeed, he had said as much to us.
I expressed myself suitably, though in a rather lukewarm manner, and the conversation languished. Then Colonel Race asked suddenly for Harry. I told him that he had gone off at dawn and that I hadn’t seen him this morning.
“You understand, don’t you, Anne, that apart from formalities, he is completely cleared? There are technicalities, of course, but Sir Eustace’s guilt is well assured. There is nothing now to keep you apart.”
He said this without looking at me, in a slow, jerky voice.
“I understand,” I said gratefully.
“And there is no reason why he should not at once resume his real name.”
“No, of course not.”
“You know his real name?”
The question surprised me.
“Of course I do. Harry Lucas.”
He did not answer, and something in the quality of his silence struck me as peculiar.
“Anne, do you remember that, as we drove home from the Matoppos that day, I told you that I knew what I had to do?”
“Of course I remember.”
“I think that I may fairly say I have done it. The man you love is cleared of suspicion.”
“Was that what you meant?”
“Of course.”
I hung my head, ashamed of the baseless suspicion I had entertained. He spoke again in a thoughtful voice:
“When I was a mere youngster, I was in love with a girl who jilted me. After that I thought only of my work. My career meant everything to me. Then I met you, Anne—and all that seemed worth nothing. But youth’s call to youth. . . . I’ve still got my work.”
I was silent. I suppose one can’t really love two men at once—but you can feel like it. The magnetism of this man was very great. I looked up at him suddenly.
“I think that you’ll go very far,” I said dreamily. “I think that you’ve got a great career ahead of you. You’ll be one of the world’s big men.”
I felt as though I was uttering a prophecy.
“I shall be alone, though.”
“All the people who do really big things are.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it.”
He took my hand and said in a low voice:
“I’d rather have had—the other.”
Then Harry came striding round the corner of the house. Colonel Race rose.
“Good morning—Lucas,” he said.
For some reason Harry flushed up to the roots of his hair.
“Yes,” I said gaily, “you must be known by your real name now.”
But Harry was still staring at Colonel Race.
“So you know, sir,” he said at last.
“I never forget a face. I saw you once as a boy.”
“What’s all this about?” I asked, puzzled, looking from one to the other.
It seemed a conflict of wills between them. Race won. Harry turned slightly away.
“I suppose you’re right, sir. Tell her my real name.”
“Anne, this isn’t Harry Lucas. Harry Lucas was killed in the War. This is John Harold Eardsley.”
With his last words Colonel Race had swung away and left us. I stood staring after him. Harry’s voice recalled me to myself.
“Anne, forgive me, say you forgive me.”
He took my hand in his and almost mechanically I drew it away.
“Why did you deceive me?”
“I don’t know that I can make you understand. I was afraid of all that sort of thing—the power and fascination of wealth. I wanted you to care for me just for myself—for the man I was—without ornaments and trappings.”
“You mean you didn’t trust me?”
“You can put it that way if you like, but it isn’t quite true. I’d become embittered, suspicious—always prone to look for ulterior motives—and it was so wonderful to be cared for in the way you cared for me.”
“I see,” I said slowly. I was going over in my own mind the story he had told me. For the first time I noted discrepancies in it which I had disregarded—an assurance of money, the power to buy back the diamonds of Nadina, the way in which he had preferred to speak of both men from the point of view of an outsider. And when he had said “my friend” he had meant, not Eardsley, but Lucas. It was Lucas, the quiet fellow, who had loved Nadina so deeply.
“How did it come about?” I asked.
“We were both reckless—anxious to get killed. One night we exchanged identification discs—for luck! Lucas was killed the next day—blown to pieces.”
I shuddered.
“But why didn’t you tell me now? This morning? You couldn’t have doubted my caring for you by this time?”
“Anne, I didn’t want to spoil it all. I wanted to take you back to the island. What’s the good of money? It can’t buy happiness. We’d have been happy on the island. I tell you I’m afraid of that other life—it nearly rotted me through once.”
“Did Sir Eustace know who you really were?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And Carton?”
“No. He saw us both with Nadina at Kimberley one night, but he didn’t know which was which. He accepted my statement that I was Lucas, and Nadina was deceived by his cable. She was never afraid of Lucas. He was a quiet chap—very deep. But I always had the devil’s own temper. She’d have been scared out of her life if she’d known that I’d come to life again.”
“Harry, if Colonel Race hadn’t told me, what did you mean to do?”
“Say nothing. Go on as Lucas.”
“And your father’s millions?”
“Race was welcome to them. Anyway, he would make a better use of them than I ever shall. Anne, what are you thinking about? You’re frowning so.”
“I’m thinking,” I said slowly, “that I almost wish Colonel Race hadn’t made you tell me.”
“No. He was right. I owed you the truth.”
He paused, then said suddenly:
“You know, Anne, I’m jealous of Race. He loves you too—and he’s a bigger man than I am or ever shall be.”
I turned to him, laughing.
“Harry, you idiot. It’s you I want—and that’s all that matters.”
As soon as possible we started for Cape Town. There Suzanne was waiting to greet me, and we disembowelled the big giraffe together. When the Revolution was finally quelled, Colonel Race came down to Cape Town and at his suggestion the big villa at Muizenberg that had belonged to Sir Lawrence Eardsley was reopened and we all took up our abode in it.
There we made our plans. I was to return to England with Suzanne and to be married from her house in London. And the trousseau was to be bought in Paris! Suzanne enjoyed planning all these details enormously. So did I. And yet the future seemed curiously unreal. And sometimes, without knowing why, I felt absolutely stifled—as though I couldn’t breathe.
It was the night before we were to sail. I couldn’t sleep. I was miserable, and I didn’t know why. I hated leaving Africa. When I came back to it, would it be the same thing? Would it ever be the same thing again?
And then I was startled by an authoritative rap on the shutter. I sprang up. Harry was on the stoep outside.
“Put some clothes on, Anne, and come out. I want to speak to you.”
I huddled on a few garments, and stepped out into the cool night air—still and scented, with its velvety feel. Harry beckoned me out of earshot of the house. His face looked pale and determined and his eyes were blazing.
“Anne, do you remember saying to me once that women enjoyed doing the things they disliked for the sake of some one they liked?”
“Yes,” I said, wondering what was coming.
He caught me in his arms.
“Anne, come away with me—now—to-night. Back to Rhodesia—back to the island. I can’t stand all this tomfoolery. I can’t wait for you any longer.”
I disengaged myself a minute.
“And what about my French frocks?” I lamented mockingly.
To this day Harry never knows when I’m in earnest and when I’m only teasing him.
“Damn your French frocks. Do
Comments (0)