THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT

PROLOGUE

Nadina, the Russian dancer who had taken Paris
by storm, swayed to the sound of the applause,
bowed and bowed again. Her narrow black eyes
narrowed themselves still more, the long line of her scarlet mouth
curved faintly upwards. Enthusiastic Frenchmen
continued to beat the ground appreciatively as the
curtain fell with a swish, hiding the reds and blues and
magentas of the bizarre décors. In a swirl of blue and
orange draperies the dancer left the stage. A bearded
gentleman received her enthusiastically in his arms. It
was the Manager.

“Magnificent, petite, magnificent,” he cried. “To-night
you have surpassed yourself.” He kissed her gallantly
on both cheeks in a somewhat matter-of-fact
manner.

Madame Nadina accepted the tribute with the ease
of long habit and passed on to her dressing-room, where
bouquets were heaped carelessly everywhere, marvellous
garments of futuristic design hung on pegs, and the air
was hot and sweet with the scent of the massed blossoms
and with more sophisticated perfumes and essences.
Jeanne, the dresser, ministered to her mistress, talking
incessantly and pouring out a stream of fulsome compliment.

A knock at the door interrupted the flow. Jeanne went
to answer it, and returned with a card in her hand.

“Madame will receive?”

“Let me see.”

The dancer stretched out a languid hand, but at the
sight of the name on the card, “Count Sergius Paulovitch,”
a sudden flicker of interest came into her eyes.

“I will see him. The maize peignoir, Jeanne, and
quickly. And when the Count comes you may go.”

“Bien, Madame.”

Jeanne brought the peignoir, an exquisite wisp of corn-coloured
chiffon and ermine. Nadina slipped into it, and
sat smiling to herself, whilst one long white hand beat a
slow tattoo on the glass of the dressing-table.

The Count was prompt to avail himself of the privilege
accorded to him—a man of medium height, very slim,
very elegant, very pale, extraordinarily weary. In feature,
little to take hold of, a man difficult to recognize
again if one left his mannerisms out of account. He
bowed over the dancer’s hand with exaggerated courtliness.

“Madame, this is a pleasure indeed.”

So much Jeanne heard before she went out closing the
door behind her. Alone with her visitor, a subtle change
came over Nadina’s smile.

“Compatriots though we are, we will not speak Russian,
I think,” she observed.

“Since we neither of us know a word of the language,
it might be as well,” agreed her guest.

By common consent, they dropped into English, and
nobody, now that the Count’s mannerisms had dropped
from him, could doubt that it was his native language.
He had, indeed, started life as a quick-change music-hall
artiste in London.

“You had a great success to-night,” he remarked. “I
congratulate you.”

“All the same,” said the woman, “I am disturbed. My
position is not what it was. The suspicions aroused during
the War have never died down. I am continually
watched and spied upon.”

“But no charge of espionage was ever brought against
you?”

“Our chief lays his plans too carefully for that.”

“Long life to the ‘Colonel,’” said the Count, smiling.
“Amazing news, is it not, that he means to retire? To
retire! Just like a doctor, or a butcher, or a plumber——”

“Or any other business man,” finished Nadina. “It should not surprise us. That
is what the ‘Colonel’ has always been—an excellent man of business. He has
organized crime as another man might organize a boot factory. Without
committing himself, he has planned and directed a series of stupendous
coups, embracing every branch of what we might call his ‘profession.’
Jewel robberies, forgery, espionage (the latter very profitable in war-time),
sabotage, discreet assassination, there is hardly anything he has not touched.
Wisest of all, he knows when to stop. The game begins to be dangerous?—he
retires gracefully—with an enormous fortune!”

“H’m!” said the Count doubtfully. “It is rather—upsetting
for all of us. We are at a loose end, as it
were.”

“But we are being paid off—on a most generous scale!”
Something, some undercurrent of mockery in her tone,
made the man look at her sharply. She was smiling to
herself, and the quality of her smile aroused his curiosity.
But he proceeded diplomatically:

“Yes, the ‘Colonel’ has always been a generous paymaster.
I attribute much of his success to that—and to
his invariable plan of providing a suitable scapegoat. A
great brain, undoubtedly a great brain! And an apostle
of the maxim, ‘If you want a thing done safely, do not
do it yourself!’ Here are we, every one of us incriminated
up to the hilt and absolutely in his power, and not one of
us has anything on him.”

He paused, almost as though he were expecting her to
disagree with him, but she remained silent, smiling to
herself as before.

“Not one of us,” he mused. “Still, you know, he is
superstitious, the old man. Years ago, I believe, he went
to one of these fortune-telling people. She prophesied a
lifetime of success, but declared that his downfall would
be brought about through a woman.”

He had interested her now. She looked up eagerly.

“That is strange, very strange! Through a woman,
you say?”

He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Doubtless, now that he has—retired, he will marry.
Some young society beauty, who will disperse his millions
faster than he acquired them.”

Nadina shook her head.

“No, no, that is not the way of it. Listen, my friend,
to-morrow I go to London.”

“But your contract here?”

“I shall be away only one night. And I go incognito,
like Royalty. No one will ever know that I have left
France. And why do you think that I go?”

“Hardly for pleasure at this time of year. January, a
detestable foggy month! It must be for profit, eh?”

“Exactly.” She rose and stood in front of him, every
graceful line of her arrogant with pride. “You said just
now that none of us had anything on the chief. You were
wrong. I have. I, a woman, have had the wit and, yes,
the courage—for it needs courage—to double-cross him.
You remember the De Beer diamonds?”

“Yes, I remember. At Kimberley, just before the war
broke out? I had nothing to do with it, and I never
heard the details, the case was hushed up for some reason,
was it not? A fine haul too.”

“A hundred thousand pounds worth of stones. Two
of us worked it—under the ‘Colonel’s’ orders, of course.
And it was then that I saw my chance. You see, the plan
was to substitute some of the De Beer diamonds for some
sample diamonds brought from South America by two
young prospectors who happened to be in Kimberley at
the time. Suspicion was then bound to fall on them.”

“Very clever,” interpolated the Count approvingly.

“The ‘Colonel’ is always clever. Well, I did my part—but
I also did one thing which the ‘Colonel’ had not
foreseen. I kept back some of the South American stones—one
or two are unique and could easily be proved never
to have passed through De Beer’s hands. With these
diamonds in my possession, I have the whip-hand of my
esteemed chief. Once the two young men are cleared,
his part in the matter is bound to be suspected. I have
said nothing all these years, I have been content to know
that I had this weapon in reserve, but now matters are
different. I want my price—and it will be a big, I might
almost say a staggering price.”

“Extraordinary,” said the Count. “And doubtless you
carry these diamonds about with you everywhere?”

His eyes roamed gently round the disordered room.

Nadina laughed softly. “You need suppose nothing of
the sort. I am not a fool. The diamonds are in a safe
place where no one will dream of looking for them.”

“I never thought you a fool, my dear lady, but may I
venture to suggest that you are somewhat foolhardy?
The ‘Colonel’ is not the type of man to take kindly to
being blackmailed, you know.”

“I am not afraid of him,” she laughed. “There is
only one man I have ever feared—and he is dead.”

The man looked at her curiously.

“Let us hope that he will not come to life again, then,”
he remarked lightly.

“What do you mean?” cried the dancer sharply.

The Count looked slightly surprised.

“I only meant that a resurrection would be awkward
for you,” he explained. “A foolish joke.”

She gave a sigh of relief.

“Oh, no, he is dead all right. Killed in the war. He
was a man who once—loved me.”

“In South Africa?” asked the Count negligently.

“Yes, since you ask it, in South Africa.”

“That is your native country, is it not?”

She nodded. Her visitor rose and reached for his hat.

“Well,” he remarked, “you know your own business
best, but, if I were you, I should fear the ‘Colonel’ far
more than any disillusioned lover. He is a man whom
it is particularly easy to—underestimate.”

She laughed scornfully.

“As if I did not know him after all these years!”

“I wonder if you do?” he said softly. “I very much
wonder if you do.”

“Oh, I am not a fool! And I am not alone in this.
The South African mail-boat docks at Southampton to-morrow,
and on board her is a man who has come specially
from Africa at my request and who has carried
out certain orders of mine. The ‘Colonel’ will have not
one of us to deal with, but two.”

“Is that wise?”

“It is necessary.”

“You are sure of this man?”

A rather peculiar smile played over the dancer’s face.

“I am quite sure of him. He is inefficient, but perfectly
trustworthy.” She paused, and then added in an indifferent
tone of voice: “As a matter of fact, he happens to
be my husband.”

CHAPTER I

Everybody has been at me, right and left, to
write this story from the great (represented by
Lord Nasby) to the small (represented by our
late maid of all work, Emily, whom I saw when I was
last in England. “Lor’, miss, what a beyewtiful book you
might make out of it all—just like the pictures!”).

I’ll admit that I’ve certain qualifications for the task.
I was mixed up in the affair from the very beginning, I
was in the thick of it all through, and I was triumphantly
“in at the death.” Very fortunately, too, the gaps that
I cannot supply from my own knowledge are amply covered
by Sir Eustace Pedler’s diary, of which he has kindly
begged me to make use.

So here goes. Anne Beddingfeld starts to narrate her
adventures.

I’d always longed for adventures. You see, my life
had such a dreadful sameness. My father, Professor
Beddingfeld, was one of England’s greatest living authorities
on Primitive Man. He really was a genius—every
one admits that. His mind dwelt in Palaeolithic
times, and the inconvenience of life for him was that his
body inhabited the modern world. Papa did not care
for modern man—even Neolithic Man he despised as a
mere herder of cattle, and he did not rise to enthusiasm
until he reached the Mousterian period.

Unfortunately one cannot entirely dispense with modern
men. One is forced to have some kind of truck with
butchers and bakers and milkmen and greengrocers.
Therefore, Papa being immersed in the past, Mamma
having died when I was a baby, it fell to me to undertake
the practical side of living. Frankly, I hate Palaeolithic
Man, be he Aurignacian, Mousterian, Chellian, or anything else,
and though I typed and revised most of Papa’s
Neanderthal Man and his Ancestors, Neanderthal men
themselves fill me with loathing, and I always reflect what
a fortunate circumstance it was that they became extinct
in remote ages.

I do not know whether Papa guessed my feelings on the
subject, probably not, and in any case he would not have
been interested. The opinion of other people never interested
him in the slightest degree. I think it was really a
sign of his greatness. In the same way, he lived quite
detached from the necessities of daily life. He ate what
was put before him in an exemplary fashion, but seemed
mildly pained when the question of paying for it arose.
We never seemed to have any money. His celebrity was
not of the kind that brought in a cash return. Although
he was a fellow of almost every important society, and
had rows of letters after his name, the general public
scarcely knew of his existence, and his long learned books,
though adding signally to the sum-total of human knowledge,
had no attraction for the masses. Only on one occasion
did he leap into the public gaze. He had read a
paper before some society on the subject of the young
of the chimpanzee. The young of the human race show
some anthropoid features, whereas the young of the
chimpanzee approach more nearly to the human than the
adult chimpanzee does. That seems to show that whereas
our ancestors were more Simian than we are, the chimpanzee’s
were of a higher type than the present species—in
other words, the chimpanzee is a degenerate. That
enterprising newspaper, the Daily Budget, being hard up
for something spicy, immediately brought itself out with
large headlines. “We are not descended from monkeys,
but are monkeys descended from us? Eminent Professor
says chimpanzees are decadent humans.” Shortly afterwards
a reporter called to see Papa, and endeavoured to
induce him to write a series of popular articles on the
theory. I have seldom seen Papa so angry. He turned
the reporter out of the house with scant ceremony, much
to my secret sorrow, as we were particularly short of
money at the moment. In fact, for a moment I meditated
running after the young man and informing him
that my father had changed his mind and would send the
articles in question. I could easily have written them
myself, and the probabilities were that Papa would never
have learnt of the transaction, not being a reader of the
Daily Budget. However, I rejected this course as being
too risky, so I merely put on my best hat and went sadly
down the village to interview our justly irate grocer.

The reporter from the Daily Budget was the only
young man who ever came to our house. There were
times when I envied Emily, our little servant, who
“walked out” whenever occasion offered with a large
sailor to whom she was affianced. In between times, to
“keep her hand in” as she expressed it, she walked out
with the greengrocer’s young man, and the chemist’s assistant.
I reflected sadly that I had no one to “keep my
hand in” with. All Papa’s friends were aged Professors—usually
with long beards. It is true that Professor Peterson
once clasped me affectionately and said I had a “neat
little waist” and then tried to kiss me. The phrase alone
dated him hopelessly. No self-respecting female has had
a “neat little waist” since I was in my cradle.

I yearned for adventure, for love, for romance, and I
seemed condemned to an existence of drab utility. The
village possessed a lending library, full of tattered works
of fiction, and I enjoyed perils and love-making at second
hand, and went to sleep dreaming of stern, silent Rhodesians,
and of strong men who always “felled their opponent
with a single blow.” There was no one in the
village who even looked as though he could “fell” an
opponent, with a single blow or with several.

There was the Kinema too, with a weekly episode of
“The Perils of Pamela.” Pamela was a magnificent
young woman. Nothing daunted her. She fell out of aeroplanes,
adventured in submarines, climbed skyscrapers
and crept about in the Underworld without turning a hair.
She was not really clever, the Master Criminal of the
Underworld caught her each time, but as he seemed loath
to knock her on the head in a simple way, and always
doomed her to death in a sewer-gas chamber or by some
new and marvellous means, the hero was always able to
rescue her at the beginning of the following week’s episode.
I used to come out with my head in a delirious
whirl—and then I would get home and find a notice from
the Gas Company threatening to cut us off if the outstanding
account was not paid!

And yet, though I did not suspect it, every moment
was bringing adventure nearer to me.

It is possible that there are many people in the world
who have never heard of the finding of an antique skull
at the Broken Hill Mine in Northern Rhodesia. I came
down one morning to find Papa excited to the point of
apoplexy. He poured out the whole story to me.

“You understand, Anne? There are undoubtedly certain
resemblances to the Java skull, but superficial—superficial
only. No, here we have what I have always
maintained—the ancestral form of the Neanderthal race.
You grant that the Gibraltar skull is the most primitive
of the Neanderthal skulls found? Why? The cradle of
the race was in Africa. They passed to Europe——”

“Not marmalade on kippers, papa,” I said hastily, arresting
my parent’s absent-minded hand. “Yes, you were
saying?”

“They passed to Europe on——”

Here he broke down with a bad fit of choking, the result
of an immoderate mouthful of kipper-bones.

“But we must start at once,” he declared, as he rose
to his feet at the conclusion of the meal. “There is no
time to be lost. We must be on the spot—there are
doubtless incalculable finds to be found in the neighbourhood.
I shall be interested to note whether the implements
are typical of the Mousterian period—there will
be the remains of the primitive ox, I should say, but not
those of the woolly rhinoceros. Yes, a little army will
be starting soon. We must get ahead of them. You will
write to Cook’s to-day, Anne?”

“What about money, papa?” I hinted delicately.

He turned a reproachful eye upon me.

“Your point of view always depresses me, my child.
We must not be sordid. No, no, in the cause of science
one must not be sordid.”

“I feel Cook’s might be sordid, papa.”

Papa looked pained.

“My dear Anne, you will pay them in ready money.”

“I haven’t got any ready money.”

Papa looked thoroughly exasperated.

“My child, I really cannot be bothered with these vulgar
money details. The bank—I had something from
the Manager yesterday, saying I had twenty-seven
pounds.”

“That’s your overdraft, I fancy.”

“Ah, I have it! Write to my publishers.”

I acquiesced doubtfully, Papa’s books bringing in more
glory than money. I liked the idea of going to Rhodesia
immensely. “Stern silent men,” I murmured to myself
in an ecstasy. Then something in my parent’s appearance
struck me as unusual.

“You have odd boots on, papa,” I said. “Take off the
brown one and put on the other black one. And don’t
forget your muffler. It’s a very cold day.”

In a few minutes Papa stalked off, correctly booted and
well mufflered.

He returned late that evening, and, to my dismay, I
saw his muffler and overcoat were missing.

“Dear me, Anne, you are quite right. I took them off
to go into the cavern. One gets so dirty there.”

I nodded feelingly, remembering an occasion when
Papa had returned literally plastered from head to foot
with rich Pleiocene clay.

Our principal reason for settling in Little Hampsly had
been the neighbourhood of Hampsly Cavern, a buried
cave rich in deposits of the Aurignacian culture. We had
a tiny Museum in the village, and the curator and Papa
spent most of their days messing about underground and
bringing to light portions of woolly rhinoceros and cave
bear.

Papa coughed badly all the evening, and the following
morning I saw he had a temperature and sent for the
doctor.

Poor Papa, he never had a chance. It was double pneumonia.
He died four days later.

CHAPTER II

Every one was very kind to me. Dazed as I was,
I appreciated that. I felt no overwhelming grief.
Papa had never loved me, I knew that well enough.
If he had, I might have loved him in return. No, there
had not been love between us, but we had belonged together,
and I had looked after him, and had secretly admired
his learning and his uncompromising devotion to
science. And it hurt me that Papa should have died just
when the interest of life was at its height for him. I
should have felt happier if I could have buried him in a
cave, with paintings of reindeer and flint implements,
but the force of public opinion constrained a neat tomb
(with marble slab) in our hideous local churchyard. The
vicar’s consolations, though well meant, did not console
me in the least.

It took some time to dawn upon me that the thing I
had always longed for—freedom—was at last mine. I
was an orphan, and practically penniless, but free. At
the same time I realized the extraordinary kindness of all
these good people. The vicar did his best to persuade
me that his wife was in urgent need of a companion help.
Our tiny local library suddenly made up its mind to have
an assistant librarian. Finally, the doctor called upon
me, and after making various ridiculous excuses for failing
to send in a proper bill, he hummed and hawed a good
deal and suddenly suggested that I should marry him.

I was very much astonished. The doctor was nearer
forty than thirty, and a round, tubby little man. He was
not at all like the hero of “The Perils of Pamela,” and
even less like a stern and silent Rhodesian. I reflected a
minute and then asked him why he wanted to marry me.
That seemed to fluster him a good deal, and he murmured
that a wife was a great help to a General Practitioner.
The position seemed even more unromantic than before,
and yet something in me urged towards its acceptance.
Safety, that was what I was being offered. Safety—and
a Comfortable Home. Thinking it over now, I believe
I did the little man an injustice. He was honestly in
love with me, but a mistaken delicacy prevented him
from pressing his suit on those lines. Anyway, my love
of romance rebelled.

“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.

CHAPTER III

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 on to something behind me, and his face
changed. It was distorted by fear—almost panic. He
stood a step backwards as though involuntarily recoiling
from some danger, forgetting that he was standing on the
extreme edge of the platform, and went down and over.

There was a vivid flash from the rails and a crackling
sound. I shrieked. People came running up. Two
station officials seemed to materialize from nowhere and
took command.

I remained where I was, rooted to the spot by a sort of
horrible fascination. Part of me was appalled at the
sudden disaster, and another part of me was coolly and
dispassionately interested in the methods employed for
lifting the man off the live rail and back onto the platform.

“Let me pass, please. I am a medical man.”

A tall man with a brown beard pressed past me and
bent over the motionless body.

As he examined it, a curious sense of unreality seemed
to possess me. The thing wasn’t real—couldn’t be.
Finally, the doctor stood upright and shook his head.

“Dead as a door-nail. Nothing to be done.”

We had all crowded nearer, and an aggrieved porter
raised his voice.

“Now then, stand back there, will you? What’s the
sense in crowding round.”

A sudden nausea seized me, and I turned blindly and
ran up the stairs again towards the lift. I felt that it was
too horrible. I must get out into the open air. The
doctor who had examined the body was just ahead of me.
The lift was just about to go up, another having descended,
and he broke into a run. As he did so, he
dropped a piece of paper.

I stopped, picked it up, and ran after him. But the
lift gates clanged in my face, and I was left holding the
paper in my hand. By the time the second lift reached
the street level, there was no sign of my quarry. I hoped
it was nothing important that he had lost, and for the
first time I examined it.

It was a plain half-sheet of notepaper with some figures
and words scrawled upon it in pencil. This is a facsimile
of it:

On the face of it, it certainly did not appear to be of
any importance. Still, I hesitated to throw it away. As
I stood there holding it, I involuntarily wrinkled my nose
in displeasure. Moth balls again! I held the paper
gingerly to my nose. Yes, it smelt strongly of them. But,
then——

I folded up the paper carefully and put it in my bag.
I walked home slowly and did a good deal of thinking.

I explained to Mrs. Flemming that I had witnessed a
nasty accident in the Tube and that I was rather upset
and would go to my room and lie down. The kind woman
insisted on my having a cup of tea. After that I was left
to my own devices, and I proceeded to carry out a plan I
had formed coming home. I wanted to know what it was
that had produced that curious feeling of unreality whilst
I was watching the doctor examine the body. First I lay
down on the floor in the attitude of the corpse, then I laid
a bolster down in my stead, and proceeded to duplicate,
so far as I could remember, every motion and gesture of
the doctor. When I had finished I had got what I wanted.
I sat back on my heels and frowned at the opposite walls.

There was a brief notice in the evening papers that a
man had been killed in the Tube, and a doubt was expressed
whether it was suicide or accident. That seemed
to me to make my duty clear, and when Mr. Flemming
heard my story he quite agreed with me.

“Undoubtedly you will be wanted at the inquest. You
say no one else was near enough to see what happened?”

“I had the feeling some one was coming up behind me,
but I can’t be sure—and, anyway, they wouldn’t be as
near as I was.”

The inquest was held. Mr. Flemming made all the
arrangements and took me there with him. He seemed
to fear that it would be a great ordeal to me, and I had to
conceal from him my complete composure.

The deceased had been identified as L. B. Carton.
Nothing had been found in his pockets except a house-agent’s
order to view a house on the river near Marlow.
It was in the name of L. B. Carton, Russell Hotel. The
bureau clerk from the hotel identified the man as having
arrived the day before and booked a room under that
name. He had registered as L. B. Carton, Kimberley,
S. Africa. He had evidently come straight off the
steamer.

I was the only person who had seen anything of the
affair.

“You think it was an accident?” the coroner asked me.

“I am positive of it. Something alarmed him, and he
stepped backwards blindly without thinking what he was
doing.”

“But what could have alarmed him?”

“That I don’t know. But there was something. He
looked panic-stricken.”

A stolid juryman suggested that some men were terrified
of cats. The man might have seen a cat. I didn’t
think his suggestion a very brilliant one, but it seemed
to pass muster with the jury, who were obviously impatient
to get home and only too pleased at being able to
give a verdict of accident as opposed to suicide.

“It is extraordinary to me,” said the coroner, “that the
doctor who first examined the body has not come forward.
His name and address should have been taken at
the time. It was most irregular not to do so.”

I smiled to myself. I had my own theory in regard to
the doctor. In pursuance of it, I determined to make a
call upon Scotland Yard at an early date.

But the next morning brought a surprise. The Flemmings
took in the Daily Budget, and the Daily Budget
was having a day after its own heart.

EXTRAORDINARY SEQUEL TO TUBE ACCIDENT.
WOMAN FOUND STABBED IN LONELY HOUSE.

I read eagerly.

“A sensational discovery was made yesterday at the
Mill House, Marlow. The Mill House, which is the property
of Sir Eustace Pedler, M.P., is to be let unfurnished,
and an order to view this property was found in the
pocket of the man who was at first thought to have committed
suicide by throwing himself on the live rail at
Hyde Park Corner Tube Station. In an upper room of
the Mill House the body of a beautiful young woman
was discovered yesterday, strangled. She is thought to
be a foreigner, but so far has not been identified. The
police are reported to have a clue. Sir Eustace Pedler,
the owner of the Mill House, is wintering on the Riviera.”

CHAPTER IV

Nobody came forward to identify the dead
woman. The inquest elicited the following facts.

Shortly after one o’clock on January 8th, a
well-dressed woman with a slight foreign accent had entered
the offices of Messrs. Butler and Park, house-agents,
in Knightsbridge. She explained that she wanted to rent
or purchase a house on the Thames within easy reach of
London. The particulars of several were given to her,
including those of the Mill House. She gave the name of
Mrs. de Castina and her address as the Ritz, but there
proved to be no one of that name staying there, and the
hotel people failed to identify the body.

Mrs. James, the wife of Sir Eustace Pedler’s gardener,
who acted as caretaker to the Mill House and inhabited
the small lodge opening on the main road, gave evidence.
About three o’clock that afternoon, a lady came to see
over the house. She produced an order from the house-agents,
and, as was the usual custom, Mrs. James gave her
the keys of the house. It was situated at some distance
from the lodge, and she was not in the habit of accompanying
prospective tenants. A few minutes later a young
man arrived. Mrs. James described him as tall and
broad-shouldered, with a bronzed face and light grey eyes.
He was clean-shaven and was wearing a brown suit. He
explained to Mrs. James that he was a friend of the lady
who had come to look over the house, but had stopped
at the post office to send a telegram. She directed
him to the house, and thought no more about the
matter.

Five minutes later he reappeared, handed her back the
keys and explained that he feared the house would not
suit them. Mrs. James did not see the lady, but thought
that she had gone on ahead. What she did notice was
that the young man seemed very much upset about something.
“He looked like a man who’d seen a ghost. I
thought he was taken ill.”

On the following day another lady and gentleman came
to see the property and discovered the body lying on the
floor in one of the upstairs rooms. Mrs. James identified
it as that of the lady who had come the day before. The
house-agents also recognized it as that of “Mrs. de Castina.”
The police surgeon gave it as his opinion that the
woman had been dead about twenty-four hours. The
Daily Budget had jumped to the conclusion that the man
in the Tube had murdered the woman and afterwards
committed suicide. However, as the Tube victim was
dead at two o’clock, and the woman was alive and well
at three o’clock, the only logical conclusion to come to
was that the two occurrences had nothing to do with each
other, and that the order to view the house at Marlow
found in the dead man’s pocket was merely one of those
coincidences which so often occur in this life.

A verdict of “Wilful Murder against some person or
persons unknown” was returned, and the police (and the
Daily Budget) were left to look for “the man in the brown
suit.” Since Mrs. James was positive that there was no
one in the house when the lady entered it, and that nobody
except the young man in question entered it until
the following afternoon, it seemed only logical to conclude
that he was the murderer of the unfortunate Mrs. de
Castina. She had been strangled with a piece of stout
black cord, and had evidently been caught unawares with
no time to cry out. The black silk handbag which she
carried contained a well-filled notecase and some loose
change, a fine lace handkerchief, unmarked, and the return
half of a first-class ticket to London. Nothing much
there to go upon.

Such were the details published broadcast by the Daily
Budget, and “Find the Man in the Brown Suit” was their
daily war-cry. On an average about five hundred people
wrote daily to announce their success in the quest, and
tall young men with well-tanned faces cursed the day
when their tailors had persuaded them to a brown suit.
The accident in the Tube, dismissed as a coincidence,
faded out of the public mind.

Was it a coincidence? I was not so sure. No doubt I
was prejudiced—the Tube incident was my own pet mystery—but
there certainly seemed to me to be a connection
of some kind between the two fatalities. In each there
was a man with a tanned face—evidently an Englishman
living abroad, and there were other things. It was the
consideration of these other things that finally impelled
me to what I considered a dashing step. I presented myself
at Scotland Yard and demanded to see whoever was
in charge of the Mill House case.

My request took some time to understand, as I had inadvertently
selected the department for lost umbrellas,
but eventually I was ushered into a small room and presented
to Detective Inspector Meadows.

Inspector Meadows was a small man with a ginger head
and what I considered a peculiarly irritating manner. A
satellite, also in plain clothes, sat unobtrusively in a corner.

“Good morning,” I said nervously.

“Good morning. Will you take a seat? I understand
you’ve something to tell me that you think may be of use
to us.”

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.

CHAPTER V

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.

CHAPTER VI

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 searched diligently, but with growing
annoyance. Finally, I shut the last book with a bang.
There appeared to be no such place as Kilmorden Castle.
Here was an unexpected check. There must be such a
place. Why should any one invent a name like that and
write it down on a piece of paper? Absurd!

Another idea occurred to me. Possibly it was a castellated
abomination in the suburbs with a high-sounding
name invented by its owner. But if so, it was going to be
extraordinarily hard to find. I sat back gloomily on my
heels (I always sit on the floor to do anything really important)
and wondered how on earth I was to set about
it.

Was there any other line I could follow? I reflected
earnestly and then sprang to my feet delightedly. Of
course! I must visit the “scene of the crime.” Always
done by the best sleuths! And no matter how long afterwards
it may be, they always find something that the
police have overlooked. My course was clear. I must
go to Marlow.

But how was I to get into the house? I discarded several
adventurous methods, and plumped for stern simplicity.
The house had been to let—presumably was still
to let. I would be a prospective tenant.

I also decided on attacking the local house-agents, as
having fewer houses on their books.

Here, however, I reckoned without my host. A pleasant
clerk produced particulars of about half a dozen desirable
properties. It took all my ingenuity to find objections
to them. In the end I feared I had drawn a blank.

“And you’ve really nothing else?” I asked, gazing
pathetically into the clerk’s eyes. “Something right on
the river, and with a fair amount of garden and a small
lodge,” I added, summing up the main points of the Mill
House, as I had gathered them from the papers.

“Well, of course there’s Sir Eustace Pedler’s place,”
said the man doubtfully. “The Mill House, you
know.”

“Not—not where——” I faltered. (Really, faltering
is getting to be my strong point.)

“That’s it! Where the murder took place. But perhaps
you wouldn’t like——”

“Oh, I don’t think I should mind,” I said with an appearance
of rallying. I felt my bona fides was now quite
established. “And perhaps I might get it cheap—in the
circumstances.”

A master touch that, I thought.

“Well, it’s possible. There’s no pretending that it will
be easy to let now—servants and all that, you know. If
you like the place after you’ve seen it, I should advise you
to make an offer. Shall I write you out an order?”

“If you please.”

A quarter of an hour later I was at the lodge of the
Mill House. In answer to my knock, the door flew open
and a tall middle-aged woman literally bounced out.

“Nobody can go into the house, do you hear that?
Fairly sick of you reporters, I am. Sir Eustace’s orders
are——”

“I understood the house was to let,” I said freezingly,
holding out my order. “Of course, if it’s already
taken——”

“Oh, I’m sure I beg your pardon, miss. I’ve been
fairly pestered with these newspaper people. Not a
minute’s peace. No, the house isn’t let—nor likely to be
now.”

“Are the drains wrong?” I asked in an anxious whisper.

“Oh, Lord, miss, the drains is all right! But surely
you’ve heard about that foreign lady as was done to death
here?”

“I believe I did read something about it in the papers,”
I said carelessly.

My indifference piqued the good woman. If I had betrayed
any interest, she would probably have closed up
like an oyster. As it was, she positively bridled.

“I should say you did, miss! It’s been in all the newspapers.
The Daily Budget’s out still to catch the man
who did it. It seems, according to them, as our police
are no good at all. Well, I hope they’ll get him—although
a nice-looking young fellow he was and no mistake. A
kind of soldierly look about him—ah, well, I dare say
he’d been wounded in the war, and sometimes they go a
bit queer afterwards, my sister’s boy did. Perhaps she’d
used him bad—they’re a bad lot, those foreigners.
Though she was a fine-looking woman. Stood there where
you’re standing now.”

“Was she dark or fair?” I ventured. “You can’t tell
from these newspaper portraits.”

“Dark hair, and a very white face—too white for nature,
I thought, and her lips reddened something cruel. I
don’t like to see it—a little powder now and then is quite
another thing.”

We were conversing like old friends now. I put another
question.

“Did she seem nervous or upset at all?”

“Not a bit. She was smiling to herself, quiet like, as
though she was amused at something. That’s why you
could have knocked me down with a feather when, the
next afternoon, those people came running out calling for
the police and saying there’d been murder done. I shall
never get over it, and as for setting foot in that house after
dark I wouldn’t do it, not if it was ever so. Why, I
wouldn’t even stay here at the lodge, if Sir Eustace hadn’t
been down on his bended knees to me.”

“I thought Sir Eustace Pedler was at Cannes?”

“So he was, miss. He come back to England when he
heard the news, and, as to the bended knees, that was a
figure of speech, his secretary, Mr. Pagett, having offered
us double pay to stay on, and, as my John says, money is
money nowadays.”

I concurred heartily with John’s by no means original
remarks.

“The young man now,” said Mrs. James, reverting suddenly
to a former point in the conversation. “He was
upset. His eyes, light eyes, they were, I noticed them
particular, was all shining. Excited, I thought. But I
never dreamt of anything being wrong. Not even when
he came out again looking all queer.”

“How long was he in the house?”

“Oh, not long, a matter of five minutes maybe.”

“How tall was he, do you think? About six foot?”

“I should say so maybe.”

“He was clean-shaven, you say?”

“Yes, miss—not even one of these toothbrush moustaches.”

“Was his chin at all shiny?” I asked on a sudden impulse.

Mrs. James stared at me with awe.

“Well, now you come to mention it, miss, it was. However
did you know?”

“It’s a curious thing, but murderers often have shiny
chins,” I explained wildly.

Mrs. James accepted the statement in all good faith.

“Really, now, miss. I never heard that before.”

“You didn’t notice what kind of a head he had, I suppose?”

“Just the ordinary kind, miss. I’ll fetch you the keys,
shall I?”

I accepted them, and went on my way to the Mill
House. My reconstructions so far I considered good.
All along I had realized that the differences between the
man Mrs. James had described and my Tube “doctor”
were those of non-essentials. An overcoat, a beard, gold-rimmed
eyeglasses. The “doctor” had appeared middle-aged,
but I remembered that he had stooped over the
body like a comparatively young man. There had been
a suppleness which told of young joints.

The victim of the accident (the Moth Ball man, as I
called him to myself) and the foreign woman, Mrs. de
Castina, or whatever her real name was, had had an
assignation to meet at the Mill House. That was how I
pieced the thing together. Either because they feared
they were being watched or for some other reason, they
chose the rather ingenious method of both getting an
order to view the same house. Thus their meeting there
might have the appearance of pure chance.

That the Moth Ball man had suddenly caught sight of
the “doctor,” and that the meeting was totally unexpected
and alarming to him, was another fact of which I was
fairly sure. What had happened next? The “doctor”
had removed his disguise and followed the woman to
Marlow. But it was possible that had he removed it
rather hastily traces of spirit-gum might still linger on
his chin. Hence my question to Mrs. James.

Whilst occupied with my thoughts I had arrived at the
low old-fashioned door of the Mill House. Unlocking it
with the key, I passed inside. The hall was low and
dark, the place smelt forlorn and mildewy. In spite of
myself, I shivered. Did the woman who had come here
“smiling to herself” a few days ago feel no chill of premonition
as she entered this house? I wondered. Did
the smile fade from her lips, and did a nameless dread
close round her heart? Or had she gone upstairs, smiling
still, unconscious of the doom that was so soon to overtake
her? My heart beat a little faster. Was the house
really empty? Was doom waiting for me in it also?
For the first time, I understood the meaning of the much-used
word, “atmosphere.” There was an atmosphere in
this house, an atmosphere of cruelty, of menace, of evil.

CHAPTER VII

Shaking off the feelings that oppressed me, I went
quickly upstairs. I had no difficulty in finding the
room of the tragedy. On the day the body was discovered
it had rained heavily, and large muddy boots had
trampled the uncarpeted floor in every direction. I wondered
if the murderer had left any footmarks the previous
day. It was likely that the police would be reticent on
the subject if he had, but on consideration I decided it
was unlikely. The weather had been fine and dry.

There was nothing of interest about the room. It was
almost square with two big bay windows, plain white walls
and a bare floor, the boards being stained round the edges
where the carpet had ceased. I searched it carefully, but
there was not so much as a pin lying about. The gifted
young detective did not seem likely to discover a neglected
clue.

I had brought with me a pencil and notebook. There
did not seem much to note, but I duly dotted down a brief
sketch of the room to cover my disappointment at the
failure of my quest. As I was in the act of returning the
pencil to my bag, it slipped from my fingers and rolled
along the floor.

The Mill House was really old, and the floors were very
uneven. The pencil rolled steadily, with increasing momentum,
until it came to rest under one of the windows.
In the recess of each window there was a broad window-seat,
underneath which there was a cupboard. My pencil
was lying right against the cupboard door. The cupboard
was shut, but it suddenly occurred to me that if it had
been open my pencil would have rolled inside. I opened
the door, and my pencil immediately rolled in and sheltered
modestly in the farthest corner. I retrieved it, noting as
I did so that owing to the lack of light and the peculiar
formation of the cupboard one could not see it, but had
to feel for it. Apart from my pencil the cupboard was
empty, but being thorough by nature I tried the one under
the opposite window.

At first sight, it looked as though that also was empty,
but I grubbed about perseveringly, and was rewarded by
feeling my hand close on a hard paper cylinder which lay
in a sort of trough, or depression, in the far corner of the
cupboard. As soon as I had it in my hand, I knew what
it was. A roll of Kodak films. Here was a find!

I realized, of course, that these films might very well
be an old roll belonging to Sir Eustace Pedler which had
rolled in here and had not been found when the cupboard
was emptied. But I did not think so. The red paper was
far too fresh-looking. It was just as dusty as it would
have been had it laid there for two or three days—that is
to say, since the murder. Had it been there for any
length of time, it would have been thickly coated.

Who had dropped it? The woman or the man? I remembered
that the contents of her handbag had appeared
to be intact. If it had been jerked open in the struggle
and the roll of films had fallen out, surely some of the
loose money would have been scattered about also? No,
it was not the woman who had dropped the films.

I sniffed suddenly and suspiciously. Was the smell of
moth balls becoming an obsession with me? I could
swear that the roll of films smelt of it also? I held them
under my nose. They had, as usual, a strong smell of
their own, but apart from that I could clearly detect the
odour I disliked so much. I soon found the cause. A
minute shred of cloth had caught on a rough edge of the
centre wood, and that shred was strongly impregnated
with moth balls. At some time or another the films had
been carried in the overcoat pocket of the man who was
killed in the Tube. Was it he who had dropped them
here? Hardly. His movements were all accounted for.

No, it was the other man, the “doctor.” He had taken
the films when he had taken the paper. It was he who
had dropped them here during his struggle with the
woman.

I had got my clue! I would have the roll developed,
and then I would have further developments to work
upon.

Very elated, I left the house, returned the keys to Mrs.
James and made my way as quickly as possible to the
station. On the way back to town, I took out my paper
and studied it afresh. Suddenly the figures took on a
new significance. Suppose they were a date? 17 1 22.
The 17th of January, 1922. Surely that must be it!
Idiot that I was not to have thought of it before. But
in that case I must find out the whereabouts of Kilmorden
Castle, for to-day was actually the 14th. Three days.
Little enough—almost hopeless when one had no idea
of where to look!

It was too late to hand in my roll to-day. I had to
hurry home to Kensington so as not to be late for
dinner. It occurred to me that there was an easy way
of verifying whether some of my conclusions were correct.
I asked Mr. Flemming whether there had been
a camera amongst the dead man’s belongings. I knew
that he had taken an interest in the case and was conversant
with all the details.

To my surprise and annoyance he replied that there
had been no camera. All Carton’s effects had been gone
over very carefully in the hopes of finding something
that might throw light upon his state of mind. He was
positive that there had been no photographic apparatus
of any kind.

That was rather a set-back to my theory. If he had
no camera, why should he be carrying a roll of films?

I set out early next morning to take my precious roll to
be developed. I was so fussy that I went all the way to
Regent Street to the big Kodak place. I handed it in and
asked for a print of each film. The man finished stacking
together a heap of films packed in yellow tin cylinders for
the tropics, and picked up my roll.

He looked at me.

“You’ve made a mistake, I think,” he said, smiling.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m sure I haven’t.”

“You’ve given me the wrong roll. This is an unexposed
one.”

I walked out with what dignity I could muster. I dare
say it is good for one now and again to realize what an
idiot one can be! But nobody relishes the process.

And then, just as I was passing one of the big shipping
offices, I came to a sudden halt. In the window was a
beautiful model of one of the company’s boats, and it was
labelled “Kenilworth Castle.” A wild idea shot through
my brain. I pushed the door open and went in. I went
up to the counter and in faltering voice (genuine this
time!) I murmured:

“Kilmorden Castle?”

“On the 17th from Southampton. Cape Town? First
or second class?”

“How much is it?”

“First class, eighty-seven pounds——”

I interrupted him. The coincidence was too much for
me. Exactly the amount of my legacy! I would put all
my eggs in one basket.

“First class,” I said.

I was now definitely committed to the adventure.

CHAPTER VIII

It is an extraordinary thing that I never seem to get
any peace. I am a man who likes a quiet life. I like
my Club, my rubber of Bridge, a well-cooked meal,
a sound wine. I like England in the summer, and the
Riviera in the winter. I have no desire to participate in
sensational happenings. Sometimes, in front of a good fire,
I do not object to reading about them in the newspaper.
But that is as far as I am willing to go. My object in
life is to be thoroughly comfortable. I have devoted a
certain amount of thought, and a considerable amount of
money, to further that end. But I cannot say that I
always succeed. If things do not actually happen to me,
they happen round me, and frequently, in spite of myself,
I become involved. I hate being involved.

All this because Guy Pagett came into my bedroom this
morning with a telegram in his hand and a face as long
as a mute at a funeral.

Guy Pagett is my secretary, a zealous, painstaking,
hard-working fellow, admirable in every respect. I know
no one who annoys me more. For a long time I have
been racking my brains as to how to get rid of him. But
you cannot very well dismiss a secretary because he prefers
work to play, likes getting up early in the morning,
and has positively no vices. The only amusing thing
about the fellow is his face. He has the face of a
fourteenth-century poisoner—the sort of man the Borgias
got to do their odd jobs for them.

I wouldn’t mind so much if Pagett didn’t make me work
too. My idea of work is something that should be undertaken
lightly and airily—trifled with, in fact! I doubt
if Guy Pagett has ever trifled with anything in his life.
He takes everything seriously. That is what makes him
so difficult to live with.

Last week I had the brilliant idea of sending him off to
Florence. He talked about Florence and how much he
wanted to go there.

“My dear fellow,” I cried, “you shall go to-morrow. I
will pay all your expenses.”

January isn’t the usual time for going to Florence, but
it would be all one to Pagett. I could imagine him going
about, guide-book in hand, religiously doing all the picture
galleries. And a week’s freedom was cheap to me at the
price.

It has been a delightful week. I have done everything
I wanted to, and nothing that I did not want to do. But
when I blinked my eyes open, and perceived Pagett standing
between me and the light at the unearthly hour
of 9 a.m. this morning, I realized that freedom was
over.

“My dear fellow,” I said, “has the funeral already
taken place, or is it for later in the morning?”

Pagett does not appreciate dry humour. He merely
stared.

“So you know, Sir Eustace?”

“Know what?” I said crossly. “From the expression
of your face I inferred that one of your near and dear
relatives was to be interred this morning.”

Pagett ignored the sally as far as possible.

“I thought you couldn’t know about this.” He tapped
the telegram. “I know you dislike being aroused early—but
it is nine o’clock”—Pagett insists on regarding 9 a.m.
as practically the middle of the day—“and I thought that
under the circumstances——” He tapped the telegram
again.

“What is that thing?” I asked.

“It’s a telegram from the police at Marlow. A woman
has been murdered in your house.”

That aroused me in earnest.

“What colossal cheek,” I exclaimed. “Why in my
house? Who murdered her?”

“They don’t say. I suppose we shall go back to England
at once, Sir Eustace?”

“You need suppose nothing of the kind. Why should
we go back?”

“The police——”

“What on earth have I to do with the police?”

“Well, it was your house.”

“That,” I said, “appears to be more my misfortune
than my fault.”

Guy Pagett shook his head gloomily.

“It will have a very unfortunate effect upon the constituency,”
he remarked lugubriously.

I don’t see why it should have—and yet I have a feeling
that in such matters Pagett’s instincts are always right.
On the face of it, a Member of Parliament will be none the
less efficient because a stray young woman comes and gets
herself murdered in an empty house that belongs to him—but
there is no accounting for the view the respectable
British public takes of a matter.

“She’s a foreigner too, and that makes it worse,” continued
Pagett gloomily.

Again I believe he is right. If it is disreputable to have
a woman murdered in your house, it becomes more disreputable
if the woman is a foreigner. Another idea
struck me.

“Good heavens,” I exclaimed, “I hope this won’t upset
Caroline.”

Caroline is the lady who cooks for me. Incidentally
she is the wife of my gardener. What kind of a wife
she makes I do not know, but she is an excellent cook.
James, on the other hand, is not a good gardener—but I
support him in idleness and give him the lodge to live in
solely on account of Caroline’s cooking.

“I don’t suppose she’ll stay after this,” said Pagett.

“You always were a cheerful fellow,” I said.

I expect I shall have to go back to England. Pagett
clearly intends that I shall. And there is Caroline to
pacify.

Three days later.

It is incredible to me that any one who can get away
from England in winter does not do so! It is an abominable
climate. All this trouble is very annoying. The
house-agents say it will be next to impossible to let the
Mill House after all the publicity. Caroline has been
pacified—with double pay. We could have sent her a
cable to that effect from Cannes. In fact, as I have said
all along, there was no earthly purpose to serve by our
coming over. I shall go back to-morrow.

One day later.

Several very surprising things have occurred. To begin
with, I met Augustus Milray, the most perfect example
of an old ass the present Government has produced. His
manner oozed diplomatic secrecy as he drew me aside in
the Club into a quiet corner. He talked a good deal.
About South Africa and the industrial situation there.
About the growing rumours of a strike on the Rand.
Of the secret causes actuating that strike. I listened as
patiently as I could. Finally, he dropped his voice to a
whisper and explained that certain documents had come
to light which ought to be placed in the hands of General
Smuts.

“I’ve no doubt you’re quite right,” I said, stifling a
yawn.

“But how are we to get them to him? Our position
in the matter is delicate—very delicate.”

“What’s wrong with the post?” I said cheerfully.
“Put a two-penny stamp on and drop ’em in the nearest
letter-box.”

He seemed quite shocked at the suggestion.

“My dear Pedler! The common post!”

It has always been a mystery to me why Governments
employ Kings’ Messengers and draw such attention to
their confidential documents.

“If you don’t like the post, send one of your young
Foreign Office fellows. He’ll enjoy the trip.”

“Impossible,” said Milray, wagging his head in a senile
fashion. “There are reasons, my dear Pedler—I assure
you there are reasons.”

“Well,” I said, rising, “all this is very interesting, but
I must be off——”

“One minute, my dear Pedler, one minute, I beg of you.
Now tell me, in confidence, is it not true that you intend
visiting South Africa shortly yourself? You have large
interests in Rhodesia, I know, and the question of
Rhodesia joining in the Union is one in which you have
a vital interest.”

“Well, I had thought of going out in about a month’s
time.”

“You couldn’t possibly make it sooner? This month?
This week, in fact?”

“I could,” I said, eyeing him with some interest. “But
I don’t know that I particularly want to.”

“You would be doing the Government a great service—a
very great service. You would not find them—er—ungrateful.”

“Meaning, you want me to be the postman?”

“Exactly. Your position is an unofficial one, your journey
is bona fide. Everything would be eminently satisfactory.”

“Well,” I said slowly, “I don’t mind if I do. The
one thing I am anxious to do is to get out of England again
as soon as possible.”

“You will find the climate of South Africa delightful—quite
delightful.”

“My dear fellow, I know all about the climate. I was
out there shortly before the war.”

“I am really much obliged to you, Pedler. I will send
you round the package by messenger. To be placed in
General Smuts’s own hands, you understand? The Kilmorden
Castle sails on Saturday—quite a good boat.”

I accompanied him a short way along Pall Mall before
we parted. He shook me warmly by the hand, and thanked
me again effusively.

I walked home reflecting on the curious by-ways of
Governmental policy.

It was the following evening that Jarvis, my butler,
informed me that a gentleman wished to see me on private
business, but declined to give his name. I have always a
lively apprehension of insurance touts, so told Jarvis to
say I could not see him. Guy Pagett, unfortunately,
when he might for once have been of real use, was laid
up with a bilious attack. These earnest, hard-working
young men with weak stomachs are always liable to
bilious attacks.

Jarvis returned.

“The gentleman asked me to tell you, Sir Eustace, that
he comes to you from Mr. Milray.”

That altered the complexion of things. A few minutes
later I was confronting my visitor in the library. He was
a well-built young fellow with a deeply tanned face. A
scar ran diagonally from the corner of his eye to the jaw,
disfiguring what would otherwise have been a handsome
though somewhat reckless countenance.

“Well,” I said, “what’s the matter?”

“Mr. Milray sent me to you, Sir Eustace. I am to
accompany you to South Africa as your secretary.”

“My dear fellow,” I said, “I’ve got a secretary already.
I don’t want another.”

“I think you do, Sir Eustace. Where is your secretary
now?”

“He’s down with a bilious attack,” I explained.

“You are sure it’s only a bilious attack?”

“Of course it is. He’s subject to them.”

My visitor smiled.

“It may or may not be a bilious attack. Time will
show. But I can tell you this, Sir Eustace, Mr. Milray
would not be surprised if an attempt were made to get
your secretary out of the way. Oh, you need have no
fear for yourself”—I suppose a momentary alarm had
flickered across my face—“you are not threatened. Your
secretary out of the way, access to you would be easier.
In any case, Mr. Milray wishes me to accompany you.
The passage-money will be our affair, of course, but you
will take the necessary steps about the passport, as though
you had decided that you needed the services of a second
secretary.”

He seemed a determined young man. We stared at
each other and he stared me down.

“Very well,” I said feebly.

“You will say nothing to any one as to my accompanying
you.”

“Very well,” I said again.

After all, perhaps it was better to have this fellow with
me, but I had a premonition that I was getting into deep
waters. Just when I thought I had attained peace!

I stopped my visitor as he was turning to depart.

“It might be just as well if I knew my new secretary’s
name,” I observed sarcastically.

He considered for a minute.

“Harry Rayburn seems quite a suitable name,” he observed.

It was a curious way of putting it.

“Very well,” I said for the third time.

CHAPTER IX

It is most undignified for a heroine to be sea-sick. In
books the more it rolls and tosses, the better she likes
it. When everybody else is ill, she alone staggers
along the deck, braving the elements and positively rejoicing
in the storm. I regret to say that at the first roll
the Kilmorden gave, I turned pale and hastened below.
A sympathetic stewardess received me. She suggested
dry toast and ginger ale.

I remained groaning in my cabin for three days. Forgotten
was my quest. I had no longer any interest in
solving mysteries. I was a totally different Anne to the
one who had rushed back to the South Kensington square
so jubilantly from the shipping office.

I smile now as I remember my abrupt entry into the
drawing-room. Mrs. Flemming was alone there. She
turned her head as I entered.

“Is that you, Anne, my dear? There is something
I want to talk over with you.”

“Yes?” I said, curbing my impatience.

“Miss Emery is leaving me.” Miss Emery was the
governness. “As you have not yet succeeded in finding
anything, I wondered if you would care—it would be so
nice if you remained with us altogether?”

I was touched. She didn’t want me, I knew. It was
sheer Christian charity that prompted the offer. I felt
remorseful for my secret criticism of her. Getting up,
I ran impulsively across the room and flung my arms
round her neck.

“You’re a dear,” I said. “A dear, a dear, a dear!
And thank you ever so much. But it’s all right, I’m off
to South Africa on Saturday.”

My abrupt onslaught had startled the good lady. She
was not used to sudden demonstrations of affection. My
words startled her still more.

“To South Africa? My dear Anne. We would have
to look into anything of that kind very carefully.”

That was the last thing I wanted. I explained that
I had already taken my passage, and that upon arrival I
proposed to take up the duties of a parlourmaid. It was
the only thing I could think of on the spur of the moment.
There was, I said, a great demand for parlourmaids in
South Africa. I assured her that I was equal to taking
care of myself, and in the end, with a sigh of relief at
getting me off her hands, she accepted the project without
further query. At parting, she slipped an envelope into
my hand. Inside it I found five new crisp five-pound
notes and the words: “I hope you will not be offended
and will accept this with my love.” She was a very good,
kind woman. I could not have continued to live in the
same house with her, but I did recognize her intrinsic
worth.

So here I was, with twenty-five pounds in my pocket,
facing the world and pursuing my adventure.

It was on the fourth day that the stewardess finally
urged me up on deck. Under the impression that I should
die quicker below, I had steadfastly refused to leave my
bunk. She now tempted me with the advent of Madeira.
Hope rose in my breast. I could leave the boat and go
ashore and be a parlourmaid there. Anything for dry
land.

Muffled in coats and rugs, and weak as a kitten on my
legs, I was hauled up and deposited, an inert mass, on a
deck-chair. I lay there with my eyes closed, hating life.
The purser, a fair-haired young man, with a round boyish
face, came and sat down beside me.

“Hullo! Feeling rather sorry for yourself, eh?”

“Yes,” I replied, hating him.

“Ah, you won’t know yourself in another day or two.
We’ve had rather a nasty dusting in the Bay, but there’s
smooth weather ahead. I’ll be taking you on at quoits
to-morrow.”

I did not reply.

“Think you’ll never recover, eh? But I’ve seen people
much worse than you, and two days later they were the
life and soul of the ship. You’ll be the same.”

I did not feel sufficiently pugnacious to tell him outright
that he was a liar. I endeavoured to convey it by a
glance. He chatted pleasantly for a few minutes more,
then he mercifully departed. People passed and repassed,
brisk couples “exercising,” curveting children, laughing
young people. A few other pallid sufferers lay, like myself,
in deck-chairs.

The air was pleasant, crisp, not too cold, and the sun
was shining brightly. Insensibly, I felt a little cheered.
I began to watch the people. One woman in particular
attracted me. She was about thirty, of medium height
and very fair with a round dimpled face and very blue
eyes. Her clothes, though perfectly plain, had that indefinable
air of “cut” about them which spoke of Paris.
Also, in a pleasant but self-possessed way, she seemed
to own the ship!

Deck stewards ran to and fro obeying her commands.
She had a special deck-chair, and an apparently inexhaustible
supply of cushions. She changed her mind
three times as to where she would like it placed. Throughout
everything she remained attractive and charming.
She appeared to be one of those rare people in the world
who know what they want, see that they get it, and manage
to do so without being offensive. I decided that if
I ever recovered—but of course I shouldn’t—it would
amuse me to talk to her.

We reached Madeira about midday. I was still too
inert to move, but I enjoyed the picturesque-looking merchants
who came on board and spread their merchandise
about the decks. There were flowers too. I buried my
nose in an enormous bunch of sweet wet violets and felt
distinctly better. In fact, I thought I might just possibly
last out the end of the voyage. When my stewardess
spoke of the attractions of a little chicken broth, I only
protested feebly. When it came I enjoyed it.

My attractive woman had been ashore. She came back
escorted by a tall, soldierly-looking man with dark hair
and a bronzed face whom I had noticed striding up and
down the deck earlier in the day. I put him down at
once as one of the strong, silent men of Rhodesia. He was
about forty, with a touch of greying hair at either temple,
and was easily the best-looking man on board.

When the stewardess brought me up an extra rug
I asked her if she knew who my attractive woman
was.

“That’s a well-known society lady, the Hon. Mrs.
Clarence Blair. You must have read about her in the
papers.”

I nodded, looking at her with renewed interest. Mrs.
Blair was very well known indeed as one of the smartest
women of the day. I observed, with some amusement,
that she was the centre of a good deal of attention. Several
people essayed to scrape acquaintance with the pleasant
informality that a boat allows. I admired the polite
way that Mrs. Blair snubbed them. She appeared to
have adopted the strong, silent man as her special cavalier,
and he seemed duly sensible of the privilege accorded
him.

The following morning, to my surprise, after taking a
few turns round the deck with her attentive companion,
Mrs. Blair came to a halt by my chair.

“Feeling better this morning?”

I thanked her, and said I felt slightly more like a
human being.

“You did look ill yesterday. Colonel Race and I decided
that we should have the excitement of a funeral at
sea—but you’ve disappointed us.”

I laughed.

“Being up in the air has done me good.”

“Nothing like fresh air,” said Colonel Race, smiling.

“Being shut up in those stuffy cabins would kill any
one,” declared Mrs. Blair, dropping into a seat by my
side and dismissing her companion with a little nod.
“You’ve got an outside one, I hope?”

I shook my head.

“My dear girl! Why don’t you change? There’s
plenty of room. A lot of people got off at Madeira, and
the boat’s very empty. Talk to the purser about it. He’s
a nice little boy—he changed me into a beautiful cabin
because I didn’t care for the one I’d got. You talk to
him at lunch-time when you go down.”

I shuddered.

“I couldn’t move.”

“Don’t be silly. Come and take a walk now with me.”

She dimpled at me encouragingly. I felt very weak on
my legs at first, but as we walked briskly up and down I
began to feel a brighter and better being.

After a turn or two, Colonel Race joined us again.

“You can see the Grand Peak of Tenerife from the
other side.”

“Can we? Can I get a photograph of it, do you think?”

“No—but that won’t deter you from snapping off at
it.”

Mrs. Blair laughed.

“You are unkind. Some of my photographs are very
good.”

“About three per cent effective, I should say.”

We all went round to the other side of the deck. There
glimmering white and snowy, enveloped in a delicate rose-coloured
mist, rose the glistening pinnacle. I uttered an
exclamation of delight. Mrs. Blair ran for her camera.

Undeterred by Colonel Race’s sardonic comments, she
snapped vigorously:

“There, that’s the end of the roll. Oh,” her tone
changed to one of chagrin, “I’ve had the thing at ‘bulb’
all the time.”

“I always like to see a child with a new toy,” murmured
the Colonel.

“How horrid you are—but I’ve got another roll.”

She produced it in triumph from the pocket of her
sweater. A sudden roll of the boat upset her balance,
and as she caught at the rail to steady herself the roll
of films flashed over the side.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Blair, comically dismayed. She
leaned over. “Do you think they have gone overboard?”

“No, you may have been fortunate enough to brain an
unlucky steward in the deck below.”

A small boy who had arrived unobserved a few paces
to our rear blew a deafening blast on a bugle.

“Lunch,” declared Mrs. Blair ecstatically. “I’ve had
nothing to eat since breakfast, except two cups of beef-tea.
Lunch, Miss Beddingfeld?”

“Well,” I said waveringly. “Yes, I do feel rather
hungry.”

“Splendid. You’re sitting at the purser’s table, I know.
Tackle him about the cabin.”

I found my way down to the saloon, began to eat gingerly,
and finished by consuming an enormous meal. My
friend of yesterday congratulated me on my recovery.
Every one was changing cabins to-day, he told me, and
he promised that my things should be moved to an outside
one without delay.

There were only four at our table, myself, a couple of
elderly ladies, and a missionary who talked a lot about
“our poor black brothers.”

I looked round at the other tables. Mrs. Blair was
sitting at the Captain’s table, Colonel Race next to her.
On the other side of the Captain was a distinguished-looking,
grey-haired man. A good many people I had
already noticed on deck, but there was one man who had
not previously appeared. Had he done so, he could
hardly have escaped my notice. He was tall and dark,
and had such a peculiarly sinister type of countenance
that I was quite startled. I asked the purser, with some
curiosity, who he was.

“That man? Oh, that’s Sir Eustace Pedler’s secretary.
Been very sea-sick, poor chap, and not appeared before.
Sir Eustace has got two secretaries with him, and the sea’s
been too much for both of them. The other fellow hasn’t
turned up yet. This man’s name is Pagett.”

So Sir Eustace Pedler, the owner of the Mill House,
was on board. Probably only a coincidence, and yet——

“That’s Sir Eustace,” my informant continued, “sitting
next to the Captain. Pompous old ass.”

The more I studied the secretary’s face, the less I
liked it. Its even pallor, the secretive, heavy-lidded eyes,
the curiously flattened head—it all gave me a feeling of
distaste, of apprehension.

Leaving the saloon at the same time as he did, I was
close behind him as he went up on deck. He was speaking
to Sir Eustace, and I overheard a fragment or two.
“I’ll see about the cabin at once then, shall I? It’s
impossible to work in yours, with all your trunks.”

“My dear fellow,” Sir Eustace replied. “My cabin is
intended (a) for me to sleep in, and (b) to attempt
to dress in. I never had any intentions of allowing you
to sprawl about the place making an infernal clicking
with that typewriter of yours.”

“That’s just what I say, Sir Eustace, we must have
somewhere to work——”

Here I parted company from them, and went below to
see if my removal was in progress. I found my steward
busy at the task.

“Very nice cabin, miss. On D deck. No. 13.”

“Oh, no!” I cried. “Not 13.”

Thirteen is the one thing I am superstitious about. It
was a nice cabin too. I inspected it, wavered, but a foolish
superstition prevailed. I appealed almost tearfully to
the steward.

“Isn’t there any other cabin I can have?”

The steward reflected.

“Well, there’s 17, just along on the starboard side.
That was empty this morning, but I rather fancy it’s been
allotted to some one. Still, as the gentleman’s things
aren’t in yet, and as gentlemen aren’t anything like so
superstitious as ladies, I dare say he wouldn’t mind changing.”

I hailed the proposition gratefully, and the steward
departed to obtain permission from the purser. He returned
grinning.

“That’s all right, miss. We can go along.”

He led the way to 17. It was not quite as large as
No. 13, but I found it eminently satisfactory.

“I’ll fetch your things right away, miss,” said the
steward.

But at that moment, the man with the sinister face
(as I had nicknamed him) appeared in the doorway.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but this cabin is reserved for
the use of Sir Eustace Pedler.”

“That’s all right, sir,” explained the steward. “We’re
fitting up No. 13 instead.”

“No, it was No. 17 I was to have.”

“No. 13 is a better cabin, sir—larger.”

“I specially selected No. 17, and the purser said I
could have it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said coldly. “But No. 17 has been
allotted to me.”

“I can’t agree to that.”

The steward put in his oar.

“The other cabin’s just the same, only better.”

“I want No. 17.”

“What’s all this?” demanded a new voice. “Steward,
put my things in here. This is my cabin.”

It was my neighbor at lunch, the Rev. Edward Chichester.

“I beg your pardon,” I said. “It’s my cabin.”

“It is allotted to Sir Eustace Pedler,” said Mr. Pagett.

We were all getting rather heated.

“I’m sorry to have to dispute the matter,” said Chichester
with a meek smile which failed to mask his determination
to get his own way. Meek men are always
obstinate, I have noticed.

He edged himself sideways into the doorway.

“You’re to have No. 28 on the port side,” said the
steward. “A very good cabin, sir.”

“I am afraid that I must insist. No. 17 was the cabin
promised to me.”

We had come to an impasse. Each one of us was determined
not to give way. Strictly speaking, I, at any rate,
might have retired from the contest and eased matters by
offering to accept Cabin 28. So long as I did not have 13
it was immaterial to me what other cabin I had. But
my blood was up. I had not the least intention of being
the first to give way. And I disliked Chichester. He
had false teeth which clicked when he ate. Many men
have been hated for less.

We all said the same things over again. The steward
assured us, even more strongly, that both the other cabins
were better cabins. None of us paid any attention to
him.

Pagett began to lose his temper. Chichester kept his
serenely. With an effort I also kept mine. And still
none of us would give way an inch.

A wink and a whispered word from the steward gave
me my cue. I faded unobtrusively from the scene. I
was lucky enough to encounter the purser almost immediately.

“Oh, please,” I said, “you did say I could have Cabin
17? And the others won’t go away. Mr. Chichester
and Mr. Pagett. You will let me have it, won’t you?”

I always say that there are no people like sailors for
being nice to women. My little purser came to the scratch
splendidly. He strode to the scene, informed the disputants
that No. 17 was my cabin, they could have Nos.
13 and 28 respectively or stay where they were—whichever
they chose.

I permitted my eyes to tell him what a hero he was and
then installed myself in my new domain. The encounter
had done me worlds of good. The sea was smooth, the
weather growing daily warmer. Sea-sickness was a thing
of the past!

I went up on deck and was initiated into the mysteries
of deck-quoits. I entered my name for various sports.
Tea was served on deck, and I ate heartily. After tea,
I played shovel-board with some pleasant young men.
They were extraordinarily nice to me. I felt that life
was satisfactory and delightful.

The dressing bugle came as a surprise and I hurried to
my new cabin. The stewardess was awaiting me with a
troubled face.

“There’s a terrible smell in your cabin, miss. What it
is, I’m sure I can’t think, but I doubt if you’ll be able to
sleep here. There’s a deck cabin up on C deck, I believe.
You might move into that—just for the night, anyway.”

The smell really was pretty bad—quite nauseating. I
told the stewardess I would think over the question of
moving whilst I dressed. I hurried over my toilet, sniffing
distastefully as I did so.

What was the smell? Dead rat? No, worse than that—and
quite different. Yet I knew it! It was something
I had smelt before. Something——Ah! I had
got it. Asafœtida! I had worked in a Hospital dispensary
during the war for a short time and had become
acquainted with various nauseous drugs.

Asafœtida, that was it. But how——

I sank down on the sofa, suddenly realizing the thing.
Somebody had put a pinch of asafœtida in my cabin.
Why? So that I should vacate it? Why were they so
anxious to get me out? I thought of the scene this afternoon
from a rather different point of view. What was
there about Cabin 17 that made so many people anxious
to get hold of it? The other two cabins were better
cabins, why had both men insisted on sticking to 17?

17. How the number persisted. It was on the 17th
I had sailed from Southampton. It was a 17—I stopped
with a sudden gasp. Quickly I unlocked my suit-case,
and took my precious paper from its place of concealment
in some rolled stockings.

17 1 22—I had taken that for a date, the date of departure
of the Kilmorden Castle. Supposing I was wrong.
When I came to think of it, would any one, writing down
a date, think it necessary to put the year as well as the
month? Supposing 17 meant Cabin 17? And 1? The
time—one o’clock. Then 22 must be the date. I looked
up at my little almanac.

To-morrow was the 22nd!

CHAPTER X

I was violently excited. I was sure that I had hit
on the right trail at last. One thing was clear, I
must not move out of the cabin. The asafœtida had
got to be borne. I examined my facts again.

To-morrow was the 22nd, and at 1 a.m. or 1 p.m.
something would happen. I plumped for 1 a.m. It
was now seven o’clock. In six hours I should know.

I don’t know how I got through the evening. I retired
to my cabin fairly early. I had told the stewardess that
I had a cold in the head and didn’t mind smells. She still
seemed distressed, but I was firm.

The evening seemed interminable. I duly retired to
bed, but in view of emergencies I swathed myself in a
thick flannel dressing-gown, and encased my feet in slippers.
Thus attired I felt that I could spring up and take
an active part in anything that happened.

What did I expect to happen? I hardly knew. Vague
fancies, most of them wildly improbable, flitted through
my brain. But one thing I was firmly convinced of, at
one o’clock something would happen.

At various times, I heard my fellow-passengers coming
to bed. Fragments of conversation, laughing good-nights,
floated in through the open transom. Then, silence.
Most of the lights went out. There was still one in the
passage outside, and there was therefore a certain amount
of light in my cabin. I heard eight bells go. The hour
that followed seemed the longest I had ever known. I
consulted my watch surreptitiously to be sure I had not
overshot the time.

If my deductions were wrong, if nothing happened at
one o’clock, I should have made a fool of myself, and
spent all the money I had in the world on a mare’s-nest.
My heart beat painfully.

Two bells went overhead. One o’clock! And nothing.
Wait—what was that? I heard the quick light patter of
feet running—running along the passage.

Then with the suddenness of a bombshell my cabin
door burst open and a man almost fell inside.

“Save me,” he said hoarsely. “They’re after me.”

It was not a moment for argument or explanation. I
could hear footsteps outside. I had about forty seconds
in which to act. I had sprung to my feet and was standing
facing the stranger in the middle of the cabin.

A cabin does not abound in hiding-places for a six-foot
man. With one arm I pulled out my cabin trunk.
He slipped down behind it under the bunk. I raised the
lid. At the same time, with the other hand I pulled down
the wash-basin. A deft movement and my hair was
screwed into a tiny knot on the top of my head. From
the point of view of appearance it was inartistic, from
another standpoint it was supremely artistic. A lady,
with her hair screwed into an unbecoming knob and in
the act of removing a piece of soap from her trunk with
which, apparently to wash her neck, could hardly be
suspected of harbouring a fugitive.

There was a knock at the door, and without waiting
for me to say, “Come in,” it was pushed open.

I don’t know what I expected to see. I think I had
vague ideas of Mr. Pagett brandishing a revolver. Or
my missionary friend with a sandbag, or some other lethal
weapon. But certainly I did not expect to see a night
stewardess, with an inquiring face and looking the essence
of respectability.

“I beg your pardon, miss, I thought you called out.”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting you.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought
a wash would do me good.” It sounded rather as though
it were a thing I never had as a general rule.

“I’m so sorry, miss,” said the stewardess again. “But
there’s a gentleman about who’s rather drunk, and we are
afraid he might get into one of the ladies’ cabins and
frighten them.”

“How dreadful,” I said, looking alarmed. “He won’t
come in here, will he?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, miss. Ring the bell if he does.
Good night.”

“Good night.”

I opened the door and peeped down the corridor. Except
for the retreating form of the stewardess, there was
nobody in sight.

Drunk! So that was the explanation of it. My histrionic
talents had been wasted. I pulled the cabin trunk
out a little farther and said:

“Come out at once, please,” in an acid voice.

There was no answer. I peered under the bunk. My
visitor lay immovable. He seemed to be asleep. I tugged
at his shoulder. He did not move.

“Dead drunk,” I thought vexedly. “What am I to
do?”

Then I saw something that made me catch my breath,
a small scarlet spot on the floor.

Using all my strength, I succeeded in dragging the man
out into the middle of the cabin. The dead whiteness of
his face showed that he had fainted. I found the cause
of his fainting easily enough. He had been stabbed under
the left shoulder-blade—a nasty deep wound. I got
his coat off and set to work to attend to it.

At the sting of the cold water he stirred, then sat up.

“Keep still, please,” I said.

He was the kind of young man who recovers his faculties
very quickly. He pulled himself to his feet and
stood there swaying a little.

“Thank you, I don’t need anything done for me.”

His manner was defiant, almost aggressive. Not a
word of thanks—of even common gratitude!

“That is a nasty wound. You must let me dress it.”

“You will do nothing of the kind.”

He flung the words in my face as though I had been
begging a favour of him. My temper, never placid, rose.

“I cannot congratulate you upon your manners,” I
said coldly.

“I can at least relieve you of my presence.” He started
for the door, but reeled as he did so. With an abrupt
movement I pushed him down upon the sofa.

“Don’t be a fool,” I said unceremoniously. “You don’t
want to go bleeding all over the ship, do you?”

He seemed to see the sense of that, for he sat quietly
whilst I bandaged up the wound as best I could.

“There,” I said, bestowing a pat on my handiwork,
“that will have to do for the present. Are you better
tempered now and do you feel inclined to tell me what
it’s all about?”

“I’m sorry that I can’t satisfy your very natural curiosity.”

“Why not?” I said, chagrined.

He smiled nastily.

“If you want a thing broadcasted, tell a woman. Otherwise
keep your mouth shut.”

“Don’t you think I could keep a secret?”

“I don’t think—I know.”

He rose to his feet.

“At any rate,” I said spitefully, “I shall be able to do
a little broadcasting about the events of this evening.”

“I’ve no doubt you will too,” he said indifferently.

“How dare you?” I cried angrily.

We were facing each other, glaring at each other with
the ferocity of bitter enemies. For the first time, I took
in the details of his appearance, the close-cropped dark
head, the lean jaw, the scar on the brown cheek, the
curious light grey eyes that looked into mine with a sort
of reckless mockery hard to describe. There was something
dangerous about him.

“You haven’t thanked me yet for saving your life?”
I said with false sweetness.

I hit him there. I saw him flinch distinctly. Intuitively
I knew that he hated above all to be reminded
that he owed his life to me. I didn’t care. I wanted to
hurt him. I had never wanted to hurt any one so much.

“I wish to God you hadn’t!” he said explosively. “I’d
be better dead and out of it.”

“I’m glad you acknowledge the debt. You can’t get
out of it. I saved your life and I’m waiting for you to
say ‘Thank you.’”

If looks could have killed, I think he would have liked
to kill me then. He pushed roughly past me. At the
door he turned back, and spoke over his shoulder.

“I shall not thank you—now or at any other time. But
I acknowledge the debt. Some day I will pay it.”

He was gone, leaving me with clenched hands, and my
heart beating like a mill race.

CHAPTER XI

There were no further excitements that night.
I had breakfast in bed and got up late the next
morning. Mrs. Blair hailed me as I came on
deck.

“Good-morning, Gipsy girl, sit down here by me. You
look as though you hadn’t slept well.”

“Why do you call me that?” I asked, as I sat down
obediently.

“Do you mind? It suits you somehow. I’ve called you
that in my own mind from the beginning. It’s the gipsy
element in you that makes you so different from any
one else. I decided in my own mind that you and Colonel
Race were the only two people on board who wouldn’t
bore me to death to talk to.”

“That’s funny,” I said, “I thought the same about you—only
it’s more understandable in your case. You’re—you’re
such an exquisitely finished product.”

“Not badly put,” said Mrs. Blair, nodding her head.
“Tell me all about yourself, Gipsy girl. Why are you
going to South Africa?”

I told her something about Papa’s life work.

“So you’re Charles Beddingfeld’s daughter? I thought
you weren’t a mere provincial Miss! Are you going to
Broken Hill to grub up more skulls?”

“I may,” I said cautiously. “I’ve got other plans as
well.”

“What a mysterious minx you are. But you do look
tired this morning. Didn’t you sleep well? I can’t keep
awake on board a boat. Ten hours’ sleep for a fool, they
say! I could do with twenty!”

She yawned, looking like a sleepy kitten. “An idiot of
a steward woke me up in the middle of the night to return
me that roll of films I dropped yesterday. He did it in
the most melodramatic manner, stuck his arm through
the ventilator and dropped them nearly in the middle of
my tummy. I thought it was a bomb for a moment!”

“Here’s your Colonel,” I said, as the tall soldierly
figure of Colonel Race appeared on the deck.

“He’s not my Colonel particularly. In fact he admires
you very much, Gipsy girl. So don’t run away.”

“I want to tie something round my head. It will be
more comfortable than a hat.”

I slipped quickly away. For some reason or other
I was uncomfortable with Colonel Race. He was one
of the few people who were capable of making me feel
shy.

I went down to my cabin and began looking for a broad
band of ribbon, or a motor-veil, with which I could
restrain my rebellious locks. Now I am a tidy person, I
like my things always arranged in a certain way and I
keep them so. I had no sooner opened my drawer than
I realized that somebody had been disarranging my things.
Everything had been turned over and scattered. I looked
in the other drawers and the small hanging cupboard.
They told me the same tale. It was as though some one
had been making a hurried and ineffectual search for
something.

I sat down on the edge of the bunk with a grave face.
Who had been searching my cabin and what had they
been looking for? Was it the half-sheet of paper with
scribbled figures and words? I shook my head, dissatisfied.
Surely that was past history now. But what else
could there be?

I wanted to think. The events of last night, though
exciting, had not really done anything to elucidate matters.
Who was the young man who had burst into my
cabin so abruptly? I had not seen him on board previously,
either on deck or in the saloon. Was he one of
the ship’s company or was he a passenger? Who had
stabbed him? Why had they stabbed him? And why,
in the name of goodness, should Cabin No. 17 figure so
prominently? It was all a mystery, but there was no
doubt that some very peculiar occurrences were taking
place on the Kilmorden Castle.

I counted off on my fingers the people on whom it behoved
me to keep a watch.

Setting aside my visitor of the night before, but promising
myself that I would discover him on board before
another day had passed, I selected the following persons
as worthy of my notice.

(1) Sir Eustace Pedler. He was the owner of the Mill
House and his presence on the Kilmorden Castle seemed
something of a coincidence.

(2) Mr. Pagett, the sinister-looking secretary, whose
eagerness to obtain Cabin 17 had been so very marked.
N.B. Find out whether he had accompanied Sir Eustace
to Cannes.

(3) The Rev. Edward Chichester. All I had against
him was his obstinacy over Cabin 17, and that might be
entirely due to his own peculiar temperament. Obstinacy
can be an amazing thing.

But a little conversation with Mr. Chichester would not
come amiss, I decided. Hastily tying a handkerchief
round my rebellious locks, I went up on deck again, full
of purpose. I was in luck. My quarry was leaning against
the rail, drinking beef tea. I went up to him.

“I hope you’ve forgiven me over Cabin 17,” I said,
with my best smile.

“I consider it unchristian to bear a grudge,” said Mr.
Chichester coldly. “But the purser had distinctly promised
me that cabin.”

“Pursers are such busy men, aren’t they?” I said
vaguely. “I suppose they’re bound to forget sometimes.”

Mr. Chichester did not reply.

“Is this your first visit to Africa?” I inquired conversationally.

“To South Africa, yes. But I have worked for the last
two years amongst the cannibal tribes in the interior of
East Africa.”

“How thrilling! Have you had many narrow escapes?”

“Escapes?”

“Of being eaten, I mean?”

“You should not treat sacred subjects with levity, Miss
Beddingfeld.”

“I didn’t know that cannibalism was a sacred subject,”
I retorted, stung.

As the words left my lips, another idea struck me. If
Mr. Chichester had indeed spent the last two years in the
interior of Africa, how was it that he was not more sunburnt?
His skin was as pink and white as a baby’s.
Surely there was something fishy there? Yet his manner
and voice were so absolutely it. Too much so perhaps.
Was he—or was he not—just a little like a stage clergyman?

I cast my mind back to the curates I had known at
Little Hampsly. Some of them I had liked, some of
them I had not, but certainly none of them had been
quite like Mr. Chichester. They had been human—he
was a glorified type.

I was debating all this when Sir Eustace Pedler passed
down the deck. Just as he was abreast of Mr. Chichester,
he stooped and picked up a piece of paper which he
handed to him, remarking “You’ve dropped something.”

He passed on without stopping, and so probably did
not notice Mr. Chichester’s agitation. I did. Whatever
it was he had dropped, its recovery agitated him considerably.
He turned a sickly green, and crumpled up
the sheet of paper into a ball. My suspicions were accentuated
a hundred-fold.

He caught my eye, and hurried into explanations.

“A—a—fragment of a sermon I was composing,” he
said with a sickly smile.

“Indeed?” I rejoined politely.

A fragment of a sermon, indeed! No, Mr. Chichester—too
weak for words!

He soon left me with a muttered excuse. I wished, oh,
how I wished, that I had been the one to pick up that
paper and not Sir Eustace Pedler! One thing was clear,
Mr. Chichester could not be exempted from my list of
suspects. I was inclined to put him top of the three.

After lunch, when I came up to the lounge for coffee,
I noticed Sir Eustace and Pagett sitting with Mrs. Blair
and Colonel Race. Mrs. Blair welcomed me with a smile,
so I went over and joined them. They were talking about
Italy.

“But it is misleading,” Mrs. Blair insisted. “Aqua
calda certainly ought to be cold water—not hot.”

“You’re not a Latin scholar,” said Sir Eustace, smiling.

“Men are so superior about their Latin,” said Mrs.
Blair. “But all the same I notice that when you ask
them to translate inscriptions in old churches they can
never do it! They hem and haw, and get out of it somehow.”

“Quite right,” said Colonel Race. “I always do.”

“But I love the Italians,” continued Mrs. Blair.
“They’re so obliging—though even that has its embarrassing
side. You ask them the way somewhere, and instead
of saying ‘first to the right, second to the left’ or something
that one could follow, they pour out a flood of well-meaning
directions, and when you look bewildered they
take you kindly by the arm and walk all the way there
with you.”

“Is that your experience in Florence, Pagett?” asked
Sir Eustace, turning with a smile to his secretary.

For some reason the question seemed to disconcert Mr.
Pagett. He stammered and flushed.

“Oh, quite so, yes—er quite so.”

Then with a murmured excuse, he rose and left the
table.

“I am beginning to suspect Guy Pagett of having committed
some dark deed in Florence,” remarked Sir Eustace,
gazing after his secretary’s retreating figure. “Whenever
Florence or Italy is mentioned, he changes the subject,
or bolts precipitately.”

“Perhaps he murdered some one there,” said Mrs. Blair
hopefully. “He looks—I hope I’m not hurting your feelings,
Sir Eustace—but he does look as though he might
murder some one.”

“Yes, pure Cinquecento! It amuses me sometimes—especially
when one knows as well as I do how essentially
law-abiding and respectable the poor fellow really is.”

“He’s been with you some time, hasn’t he, Sir Eustace?”
asked Colonel Race.

“Six years,” said Sir Eustace, with a deep sigh.

“He must be quite invaluable to you,” said Mrs. Blair.

“Oh, invaluable! Yes, quite invaluable.” The poor
man sounded even more depressed, as though the invaluableness
of Mr. Pagett was a secret grief to him. Then
he added more briskly: “But his face should really inspire
you with confidence, my dear lady. No self-respecting
murderer would ever consent to look like one. Crippen,
now, I believe, was one of the pleasantest fellows imaginable.”

“He was caught on a liner, wasn’t he?” murmured
Mrs. Blair.

There was a slight rattle behind us. I turned quickly.
Mr. Chichester had dropped his coffee-cup.

Our party soon broke up; Mrs. Blair went below to
sleep and I went out on deck. Colonel Race followed me.

“You’re very elusive, Miss Beddingfeld. I looked for
you everywhere last night at the dance.”

“I went to bed early,” I explained.

“Are you going to run away to-night too? Or are you
going to dance with me?”

“I shall be very pleased to dance with you,” I murmured
shyly. “But Mrs. Blair——”

“Our friend, Mrs. Blair, doesn’t care for dancing.”

“And you do?”

“I care for dancing with you.”

“Oh!” I said nervously.

I was a little afraid of Colonel Race. Nevertheless I
was enjoying myself. This was better than discussing
fossilized skulls with stuffy old professors! Colonel Race
was really just my ideal of a stern silent Rhodesian.
Possibly I might marry him! I hadn’t been asked, it is
true, but, as the Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared! And
all women, without in the least meaning it, consider
every man they meet as a possible husband for themselves
or for their best friend.

I danced several times with him that evening. He
danced well. When the dancing was over, and I was
thinking of going to bed, he suggested a turn round the
deck. We walked round three times and finally subsided
into two deck-chairs. There was nobody else in sight.
We made desultory conversation for some time.

“Do you know, Miss Beddingfeld, I think that I once
met your father? A very interesting man—on his own
subject, and it’s a subject that has a special fascination for
me. In my humble way, I’ve done a bit in that line myself.
Why, when I was in the Dordogne region——”

Our talk became technical. Colonel Race’s boast was
not an idle one. He knew a great deal. At the same
time, he made one or two curious mistakes—slips of the
tongue, I might almost have thought them. But he was
quick to take his cue from me and to cover them up. Once
he spoke of the Mousterian period as succeeding the
Aurignacian—an absurd mistake for one who knew anything
of the subject.

It was twelve o’clock when I went to my cabin. I
was still puzzling over those queer discrepancies. Was
it possible that he had “got the whole subject up” for the
occasion—that really he knew nothing of archaeology?
I shook my head, vaguely dissatisfied with that solution.

Just as I was dropping off to sleep, I sat up with a
sudden start as another idea flashed into my head. Had
he been pumping me? Were those slight inaccuracies
just tests—to see whether I really knew what I was
talking about? In other words, he suspected me of not
being genuinely Anne Beddingfeld.

Why?

CHAPTER XII

There is something to be said for life on board
ship. It is peaceful. My grey hairs fortunately
exempt me from the indignities of bobbing for
apples, running up and down the deck with potatoes and
eggs, and the more painful sports of “Brother Bill” and
Bolster Bar. What amusement people can find in these
painful proceedings has always been a mystery to me.
But there are many fools in the world. One praises God
for their existence and keeps out of their way.

Fortunately I am an excellent sailor. Pagett, poor fellow,
is not. He began turning green as soon as we were
out of the Solent. I presume my other so-called secretary
is also sea-sick. At any rate he has not yet made his appearance.
But perhaps it is not sea-sickness, but high
diplomacy. The great thing is that I have not been
worried by him.

On the whole, the people on board are a mangy lot.
Only two decent Bridge players and one decent-looking
woman—Mrs. Clarence Blair. I’ve met her in town of
course. She is one of the only women I know who can
lay claim to a sense of humour. I enjoy talking to her,
and should enjoy it more if it were not for a long-legged
taciturn ass who has attached himself to her like a limpet.
I cannot think that this Colonel Race really amuses her.
He’s good-looking in his way, but dull as ditch water.
One of these strong silent men that lady novelists and
young girls always rave over.

Guy Pagett struggled up on deck after we left Madeira
and began babbling in a hollow voice about work. What
the devil does any one want to work for on board ship?
It is true that I promised my publishers my “Reminiscences”
early in the summer, but what of it? Who really
reads reminiscences? Old ladies in the suburbs. And
what do my reminiscences amount to? I’ve knocked
against a certain number of so-called famous people in
my lifetime. With the assistance of Pagett, I invent insipid
anecdotes about them. And, the truth of the matter
is, Pagett is too honest for the job. He won’t let me
invent anecdotes about the people I might have met but
haven’t.

I tried kindness with him.

“You look a perfect wreck still, my dear chap,” I said
easily. “What you need is a deck-chair in the sun. No—not
another word. The work must wait.”

The next thing I knew he was worrying about an extra
cabin. “There’s no room to work in your cabin, Sir
Eustace. It’s full of trunks.”

From his tone, you might have thought that trunks
were blackbeetles, something that had no business to be
there.

I explained to him that, though he might not be aware
of the fact, it was usual to take a change of clothing with
one when travelling. He gave the wan smile with which
he always greets my attempts at humour, and then reverted
to the business in hand.

“And we could hardly work in my little hole.”

I know Pagett’s “little holes”—he usually has the best
cabin on the ship.

“I’m sorry the Captain didn’t turn out for you this
time,” I said sarcastically. “Perhaps you’d like to dump
some of your extra luggage in my cabin?”

Sarcasm is dangerous with a man like Pagett. He
brightened up at once.

“Well, if I could get rid of the typewriter and the
stationery trunk——”

The stationery trunk weighs several solid tons. It
causes endless unpleasantness with the porters, and it is
the aim of Pagett’s life to foist it on me. It is a perpetual
struggle between us. He seems to regard it as
my special personal property. I, on the other hand,
regard the charge of it as the only thing where a secretary
is really useful.

“We’ll get an extra cabin,” I said hastily.

The thing seemed simple enough, but Pagett is a person
who loves to make mysteries. He came to me the
next day with a face like a Renaissance conspirator.

“You know you told me to get Cabin 17 for an
office?”

“Well, what of it? Has the stationery trunk jammed
in the doorway?”

“The doorways are the same size in all the cabins,”
replied Pagett seriously. “But I tell you, Sir Eustace,
there’s something very queer about that cabin.”

Memories of reading The Upper Berth floated through
my mind.

“If you mean that it’s haunted,” I said, “we’re not
going to sleep there, so I don’t see that it matters. Ghosts
don’t affect typewriters.”

Pagett said that it wasn’t a ghost, and that, after all, he
hadn’t got Cabin 17. He told me a long, garbled story.
Apparently he, and a Mr. Chichester, and a girl called
Beddingfeld, had almost come to blows over the cabin.
Needless to say, the girl had won, and Pagett was apparently
feeling sore over the matter.

“Both 13 and 28 are better cabins,” he reiterated.
“But they wouldn’t look at them.”

“Well,” I said, stifling a yawn, “for that matter, no
more would you, my dear Pagett.”

He gave me a reproachful look.

“You told me to get Cabin 17.”

There is a touch of the “boy upon the burning deck”
about Pagett.

“My dear fellow,” I said testily, “I mentioned No. 17
because I happened to observe that it was vacant. But I
didn’t mean you to make a stand to the death about it—13
or 28 would have done us equally well.”

He looked hurt.

“There’s something more, though,” he insisted. “Miss
Beddingfeld got the cabin, but this morning I saw Chichester
coming out of it in a furtive sort of way.”

I looked at him severely.

“If you’re trying to get up a nasty scandal about
Chichester, who is a missionary—though a perfectly poisonous
person—and that attractive child, Anne Beddingfeld,
I don’t believe a word of it,” I said coldly. “Anne
Beddingfeld is an extremely nice girl—with particularly
good legs. I should say she had far and away the best
legs on board.”

Pagett did not like my reference to Anne Beddingfeld’s
legs. He is the sort of man who never notices legs himself—or,
if he does, would die sooner than say so. Also
he thinks my appreciation of such things frivolous. I
like annoying Pagett, so I continued maliciously:

“As you’ve made her acquaintance, you might ask her
to dine at our table to-morrow night. It’s the Fancy
Dress dance. By the way, you’d better go down to the
barber and select a fancy costume for me.”

“Surely you will not go in fancy dress?” said Pagett,
in tones of horror.

I could see that it was quite incompatible with his idea
of my dignity. He looked shocked and pained. I had
really had no intention of donning fancy dress, but the
complete discomfiture of Pagett was too tempting to be
forborne.

“What do you mean?” I said. “Of course I shall
wear fancy dress. So will you.”

Pagett shuddered.

“So go down to the barber’s and see about it,” I finished.

“I don’t think he’ll have any out sizes,” murmured
Pagett, measuring my figure with his eye.

Without meaning it, Pagett can occasionally be extremely
offensive.

“And order a table for six in the saloon,” I said.
“We’ll have the Captain, the girl with the nice legs, Mrs.
Blair——”

“You won’t get Mrs. Blair without Colonel Race,”
Pagett interposed. “He’s asked her to dine with him, I
know.”

Pagett always knows everything. I was justifiably
annoyed.

“Who is Race?” I demanded, exasperated.

As I said before, Pagett always knows everything—or
thinks he does. He looked mysterious again.

“They say he’s a Secret Service chap, Sir Eustace.
Rather a great gun too. But of course I don’t know for
certain.”

“Isn’t that like the Government?” I exclaimed. “Here’s
a man on board whose business it is to carry about
secret documents, and they go giving them to a peaceful
outsider, who only asks to be let alone.”

Pagett looked even more mysterious. He came a pace
nearer and dropped his voice.

“If you ask me, the whole thing is very queer, Sir
Eustace. Look at that illness of mine before we
started——”

“My dear fellow,” I interrupted brutally, “that was a
bilious attack. You’re always having bilious attacks.”

Pagett winced slightly.

“It wasn’t the usual sort of bilious attack. This
time——

“For God’s sake, don’t go into the details of your condition,
Pagett. I don’t want to hear them.”

“Very well, Sir Eustace. But my belief is that I was
deliberately poisoned!”

“Ah!” I said. “You’ve been talking to Rayburn.”

He did not deny it.

“At any rate, Sir Eustace, he thinks so—and he should
be in a position to know.”

“By the way, where is the chap?” I asked. “I’ve not
set eyes on him since we came on board.”

“He gives out that he’s ill, and stays in his cabin, Sir
Eustace.” Pagett’s voice dropped again. “But that’s
camouflage, I’m sure. So that he can watch better.”

“Watch?”

“Over your safety, Sir Eustace. In case an attack
should be made upon you.”

“You’re such a cheerful fellow, Pagett,” I said. “I
trust that your imagination runs away with you. If I
were you I should go to the dance as a death’s head or an
executioner. It will suit your mournful style of beauty.”

That shut him up for the time being. I went on deck.
The Beddingfeld girl was deep in conversation with the
missionary parson, Chichester. Women always flutter
round parsons.

A man of my figure hates stooping, but I had the
courtesy to pick up a bit of paper that was fluttering
round the parson’s feet.

I got no word of thanks for my pains. As a matter of
fact, I couldn’t help seeing what was written on the sheet
of paper. There was just one sentence:

“Don’t try to play a lone hand or it will be the worse
for you.”

That’s a nice thing for a parson to have. Who is this
fellow Chichester, I wonder? He looks mild as milk. But
looks are deceptive. I shall ask Pagett about him. Pagett
always knows everything.

I sank gracefully into my deck-chair by the side of
Mrs. Blair, thereby interrupting her tête-à-tête with Race,
and remarked that I didn’t know what the clergy were
coming to nowadays.

Then I asked her to dine with me on the night of the
Fancy Dress dance. Somehow or other Race managed to
get included in the invitation.

After lunch the Beddingfeld girl came and sat with
us for coffee. I was right about her legs. They are the
best on the ship. I shall certainly ask her to dinner as
well.

I would very much like to know what mischief Pagett
was up to in Florence. Whenever Italy is mentioned, he
goes to pieces. If I did not know how intensely respectable
he is—I should suspect him of some disreputable
amour . . .

I wonder now! Even the most respectable men——It
would cheer me up enormously if it was so.

Pagett—with a guilty secret! Splendid!

CHAPTER XIII

It has been a curious evening.

The only costume that fitted me in the barber’s
emporium was that of a Teddy Bear. I don’t mind
playing bears with some nice young girls on a winter’s
evening in England—but it’s hardly an ideal costume for
the equator. However, I created a good deal of merriment,
and won first prize for “brought on board”—an
absurd term for a costume hired for the evening. Still
as nobody seemed to have the least idea whether they
were made or brought, it didn’t matter.

Mrs. Blair refused to dress up. Apparently she is at
one with Pagett on the matter. Colonel Race followed
her example. Anne Beddingfeld had concocted a gipsy
costume for herself, and looked extraordinarily well.
Pagett said he had a headache and didn’t appear. To
replace him I asked a quaint little fellow called Reeves.
He’s a prominent member of the South African Labour
party. Horrible little man, but I want to keep in with
him, as he gives me information that I need. I want to
understand this Rand business from both sides.

Dancing was a hot affair. I danced twice with Anne
Beddingfeld and she had to pretend she liked it. I danced
once with Mrs. Blair, who didn’t trouble to pretend, and I
victimized various other damsels whose appearance struck
me favourably.

Then we went down to supper. I had ordered champagne;
the steward suggested Clicquot 1911 as being the
best they had on the boat and I fell in with his suggestion.
I seemed to have hit on the one thing that would loosen
Colonel Race’s tongue. Far from being taciturn, the man
became actually talkative. For a while this amused me,
then it occurred to me that Colonel Race, and not myself,
was becoming the life and soul of the party. He chaffed
me at length about keeping a diary.

“It will reveal all your indiscretions one of these days,
Pedler.”

“My dear Race,” I said, “I venture to suggest that I
am not quite the fool you think me. I may commit indiscretions,
but I don’t write them down in black and white.
After my death, my executors will know my opinion of a
great many people, but I doubt if they will find anything
to add or detract from their opinion of me. A diary is
useful for recording the idiosyncrasies of other people—but
not one’s own.”

“There is such a thing as unconscious self-revelation,
though.”

“In the eyes of the psycho-analyst, all things are vile,”
I replied sententiously.

“You must have had a very interesting life, Colonel
Race?” said Miss Beddingfeld, gazing at him with wide,
starry eyes.

That’s how they do it, these girls! Othello charmed
Desdemona by telling her stories, but, oh, didn’t Desdemona
charm Othello by the way she listened?

Anyway, the girl set Race off all right. He began to
tell lion stories. A man who has shot lions in large quantities
has an unfair advantage over other men. It seemed
to me that it was time I, too, told a lion story. One of a
more sprightly character.

“By the way,” I remarked, “that reminds me of a
rather exciting tale I heard. A friend of mine was out
on a shooting trip somewhere in East Africa. One night
he came out of his tent for some reason, and was startled
by a low growl. He turned sharply and saw a lion
crouching to spring. He had left his rifle in the tent.
Quick as thought, he ducked, and the lion sprang right
over his head. Annoyed at having missed him, the animal
growled and prepared to spring again. Again he
ducked, and again the lion sprang right over him. This
happened a third time, but by now he was close to the
entrance of the tent, and he darted in and seized his rifle.
When he emerged, rifle in hand, the lion had disappeared.
That puzzled him greatly. He crept round the back of
the tent, where there was a little clearing. There, sure
enough, was the lion, busily practising low jumps.”

This was received with a roar of applause. I drank
some champagne.

“On another occasion,” I remarked, “this friend of
mine had a second curious experience. He was trekking
across country, and being anxious to arrive at his destination
before the heat of the day he ordered his boys to inspan
whilst it was still dark. They had some trouble in
doing so, as the mules were very restive, but at last they
managed it, and a start was made. The mules raced
along like the wind, and when daylight came they saw
why. In the darkness, the boys had inspanned a lion as
the near wheeler.”

This, too, was well received, a ripple of merriment
going round the table, but I am not sure that the greatest
tribute did not come from my friend, the Labour Member,
who remained pale and serious.

“My God!” he said anxiously. “Who un’arnessed
them?”

“I must go to Rhodesia,” said Mrs. Blair. “After
what you have told us, Colonel Race, I simply must. It’s
a horrible journey though, five days in the train.”

“You must join me on my private car,” I said gallantly.
“Oh, Sir Eustace, how sweet of you, do you really mean
it?”

“Do I mean it!” I exclaimed reproachfully, and drank
another glass of champagne.

“Just about another week, and we shall be in South
Africa,” sighed Mrs. Blair.

“Ah, South Africa,” I said sentimentally, and began to
quote from a recent speech of mine at the Colonial Institute.
“What has South Africa to show the world? What
indeed? Her fruit and her farms, her wool and her wattles,
her herds and her hides, her gold and her diamonds——”

I was hurrying on, because I knew that as soon as I
paused Reeves would butt in and inform me that the hides
were worthless because the animals hung themselves up
on barbed wire or something of that sort, would crab
everything else, and end up with the hardships of the
miners on the Rand. And I was not in the mood to be
abused as a Capitalist. However, the interruption came
from another source at the magic word diamonds.

“Diamonds!” said Mrs. Blair ecstatically.

“Diamonds!” breathed Miss Beddingfeld.

They both addressed Colonel Race.

“I suppose you’ve been to Kimberley?”

I had been to Kimberley too, but I didn’t manage to
say so in time. Race was being inundated with questions.
What were mines like? Was it true that the natives
were kept shut up in compounds? And so on.

Race answered their questions and showed a good
knowledge of his subject. He described the methods of
housing the natives, the searches instituted, and the various
precautions that De Beers took.

“Then it’s practically impossible to steal any diamonds?”
asked Mrs. Blair with as keen an air of disappointment
as though she had been journeying there for
the express purpose.

“Nothing’s impossible, Mrs. Blair. Thefts do occur—like
the case I told you of where the Kafir hid the stone
in his wound.”

“Yes, but on a large scale?”

“Once, in recent years. Just before the War in fact.
You must remember the case, Pedler. You were in South
Africa at the time?”

I nodded.

“Tell us,” cried Miss Beddingfeld. “Oh, do tell us!”

Race smiled.

“Very well, you shall have the story. I suppose most
of you have heard of Sir Laurence Eardsley, the great
South African mining magnate? His mines were gold
mines, but he comes into the story through his son. You
may remember that just before the War rumours were
afield of a new potential Kimberley hidden somewhere in
the rocky floor of the British Guiana jungles. Two young
explorers, so it was reported, had returned from that part
of South America bringing with them a remarkable collection
of rough diamonds, some of them of considerable size.
Diamonds of small size had been found before in the
neighbourhood of the Essequibo and Mazaruni rivers, but
these two young men, John Eardsley and his friend Lucas,
claimed to have discovered beds of great carbon deposits
at the common head of two streams. The diamonds were
of every colour, pink, blue, yellow, green, black, and the
purest white. Eardsley and Lucas came to Kimberley
where they were to submit their gems to inspection. At
the same time a sensational robbery was found to have
taken place at De Beers. When sending diamonds to
England they are made up into a packet. This remains
in the big safe, of which the two keys are held by two
different men whilst a third man knows the combination.
They are handed to the Bank, and the Bank send them
to England. Each package is worth, roughly, about
£100,000.

“On this occasion, the Bank were struck by something
a little unusual about the sealing of the packet. It was
opened, and found to contain knobs of sugar!

“Exactly how suspicion came to fasten on John Eardsley
I do not know. It was remembered that he had been
very wild at Cambridge and that his father had paid his
debts more than once. Anyhow, it soon got about that
this story of South American diamond fields was all a
fantasy. John Eardsley was arrested. In his possession
was found a portion of the De Beer diamonds.

“But the case never came to court. Sir Laurence
Eardsley paid over a sum equal to the missing diamonds
and De Beers did not prosecute. Exactly how the robbery
was committed has never been known. But the
knowledge that his son was a thief broke the old man’s
heart. He had a stroke shortly afterwards. As for John,
his Fate was in a way merciful. He enlisted, went to the
War, fought there bravely, and was killed, thus wiping
out the stain on his name. Sir Laurence himself had a
third stroke and died about a month ago. He died intestate
and his vast fortune passed to his next of kin, a
man whom he hardly knew.”

The Colonel paused. A babel of ejaculations and questions
broke out. Something seemed to attract Miss Beddingfeld’s
attention, and she turned in her chair. At the
little gasp she gave, I, too, turned.

My new secretary, Rayburn, was standing in the doorway.
Under his tan, his face had the pallor of one who
has seen a ghost. Evidently Race’s story had moved him
profoundly.

Suddenly conscious of our scrutiny, he turned abruptly
and disappeared.

“Do you know who that is?” asked Anne Beddingfeld
abruptly.

“That’s my other secretary,” I explained. “Mr. Rayburn.
He’s been seedy up to now.”

She toyed with the bread by her plate.

“Has he been your secretary long?”

“Not very long,” I said cautiously.

But caution is useless with a woman, the more you hold
back, the more she presses forward. Anne Beddingfeld
made no bones about it.

“How long?” she asked bluntly.

“Well—er—I engaged him just before I sailed. Old
friend of mine recommended him.”

She said nothing more, but relapsed into a thoughtful
silence. I turned to Race with the feeling that it was
my turn to display an interest in his story.

“Who is Sir Laurence’s next of kin, Race? Do you
know?”

“I should say so,” he replied, with a smile. “I am!”

CHAPTER XIV

It was on the night of the Fancy Dress dance that I
decided that the time had come for me to confide in
some one. So far I had played a lone hand and
rather enjoyed it. Now suddenly everything was changed.
I distrusted my own judgment and for the first time a
feeling of loneliness and desolation crept over me.

I sat on the edge of my bunk, still in my gipsy dress,
and considered the situation. I thought first of Colonel
Race. He had seemed to like me. He would be kind, I
was sure. And he was no fool. Yet, as I thought it over,
I wavered. He was a man of commanding personality.
He would take the whole matter out of my hands. And
it was my mystery! There were other reasons, too, which
I would hardly acknowledge to myself, but which made it
inadvisable to confide in Colonel Race.

Then I thought of Mrs. Blair. She, too, had been kind
to me. I did not delude myself into the belief that that
really meant anything. It was probably a mere whim of
the moment. All the same, I had it in my power to interest
her. She was a woman who had experienced most
of the ordinary sensations of life. I proposed to supply
her with an extraordinary one! And I liked her; liked
her ease of manner, her lack of sentimentality, her freedom
from any form of affectation.

My mind was made up. I decided to seek her out then
and there. She would hardly be in bed yet.

Then I remembered that I did not know the number of
her cabin. My friend, the night stewardess, would probably
know. I rang the bell. After some delay it was answered
by a man. He gave me the information I wanted.
Mrs. Blair’s cabin was No. 71. He apologized for the
delay in answering the bell, but explained that he had all
the cabins to attend to.

“Where is the stewardess, then?” I asked.

“They all go off duty at ten o’clock.”

“No—I mean the night stewardess.”

“No stewardess on at night, miss.”

“But—but a stewardess came the other night—about
one o’clock.”

“You must have been dreaming, miss. There’s no
stewardess on duty after ten.”

He withdrew and I was left to digest this morsel of information.
Who was the woman who had come to my cabin on
the night of the 22nd? My face grew graver as
I realized the cunning and audacity of my unknown antagonists.
Then, pulling myself together, I left my own
cabin and sought that of Mrs. Blair. I knocked at the
door.

“Who’s that?” called her voice from within.

“It’s me—Anne Beddingfeld.”

“Oh, come in, Gipsy girl.”

I entered. A good deal of scattered clothing lay about,
and Mrs. Blair herself was draped in one of the loveliest
kimonos I had ever seen. It was all orange and gold and
black and made my mouth water to look at it.

“Mrs. Blair,” I said abruptly, “I want to tell you the
story of my life—that is, if it isn’t too late, and you won’t
be bored.”

“Not a bit. I always hate going to bed,” said Mrs.
Blair, her face crinkling into smiles in the delightful way
it had. “And I should love to hear the story of your life.
You’re a most unusual creature, Gipsy girl. Nobody else
would think of bursting in on me at 1 a.m. to tell me the
story of their life. Especially after snubbing my natural
curiosity for weeks as you have done! I’m not accustomed
to being snubbed. It’s been quite a pleasing
novelty. Sit down on the sofa and unburden your soul.”

I told her the whole story. It took some time as I was
conscientious over all the details. She gave a deep sigh
when I had finished, but she did not say at all what I had
expected her to say. Instead she looked at me, laughed
a little and said:

“Do you know, Anne, you’re a very unusual girl?
Haven’t you ever had qualms?”

“Qualms?” I asked, puzzled.

“Yes, qualms, qualms, qualms! Starting off alone with
practically no money. What will you do when you find
yourself in a strange country with all your money gone?”

“It’s no good bothering about that until it comes. I’ve
got plenty of money still. The twenty-five pounds that
Mrs. Flemming gave me is practically intact, and then I
won the sweep yesterday. That’s another fifteen pounds.
Why, I’ve got lots of money. Forty pounds!”

“Lots of money! My God!” murmured Mrs. Blair.
“I couldn’t do it, Anne, and I’ve plenty of pluck in my
own way. I couldn’t start off gaily with a few pounds
in my pocket and no idea as to what I was doing and
where I was going.”

“But that’s the fun of it,” I cried, thoroughly roused.
“It gives one such a splendid feeling of adventure.”

She looked at me, nodded once or twice, and then
smiled.

“Lucky Anne! There aren’t many people in the world
who feel as you do.”

“Well,” I said impatiently, “what do you think of it
all, Mrs. Blair?”

“I think it’s the most thrilling thing I ever heard!
Now, to begin with, you will stop calling me Mrs. Blair.
Suzanne will be ever so much better. Is that agreed?”

“I should love it, Suzanne.”

“Good girl. Now let’s get down to business. You say
that in Sir Eustace’s secretary—not that long-faced
Pagett, the other one—you recognized the man who was
stabbed and came into your cabin for shelter?”

I nodded.

“That gives us two links connecting Sir Eustace with
the tangle. The woman was murdered in his house, and
it’s his secretary who gets stabbed at the mystic hour of
one o’clock. I don’t suspect Sir Eustace himself, but it
can’t be all coincidence. There’s a connection somewhere
even if he himself is unaware of it.”

“Then there’s the queer business of the stewardess,”
she continued thoughtfully. “What was she like?”

“I hardly noticed her. I was so excited and strung up—and
a stewardess seemed such an anticlimax. But—yes—I
did think her face was familiar. Of course it
would be if I’d seen her about the ship.”

“Her face seemed familiar to you,” said Suzanne.
“Sure she wasn’t a man?”

“She was very tall,” I admitted.

“Hum. Hardly Sir Eustace, I should think, nor Mr.
Pagett——Wait!”

She caught up a scrap of paper and began drawing
feverishly. She inspected the result with her head poised
on one side.

“A very good likeness of the Rev. Edward Chichester.
Now for the etceteras.” She passed the paper over to
me. “Is that your stewardess?”

“Why, yes,” I cried. “Suzanne, how clever of you!”

She disdained the compliment with a light gesture.

“I’ve always had suspicions of that Chichester creature.
Do you remember how he dropped his coffee-cup
and turned a sickly green when we were discussing Crippen
the other day?”

“And he tried to get Cabin 17!”

“Yes, it all fits in so far. But what does it all mean?
What was really meant to happen at one o’clock in Cabin
17? It can’t be the stabbing of the secretary. There
would be no point in timing that for a special hour on a
special day in a special place. No, it must have been
some kind of appointment and he was on his way to keep
it when they knifed him. But who was the appointment
with? Certainly not with you. It might have been with
Chichester. Or it might have been with Pagett.”

“That seems unlikely,” I objected, “they can see each
other any time.”

We both sat silent for a minute or two, then Suzanne
started off on another tack.

“Could there have been anything hidden in the cabin?”

“That seems more probable,” I agreed. “It would explain
my things being ransacked the next morning. But
there was nothing hidden there, I’m sure of it.”

“The young man couldn’t have slipped something into
a drawer the night before?”

I shook my head.

“I should have seen him.”

“Could it have been your precious piece of paper they
were looking for?”

“It might have been, but it seems rather senseless. It
was only a time and a date—and they were both past by
then.”

Suzanne nodded.

“That’s so of course. No, it wasn’t the paper. By the
way, have you got it with you? I’d rather like to see it.”

I had brought the paper with me as Exhibit A, and I
handed it over to her. She scrutinized it, frowning.

“There’s a dot after the 17. Why isn’t there a dot
after the 1 too?”

“There’s a space,” I pointed out.

“Yes, there’s a space, but——”

Suddenly she rose and peered at the paper, holding it
as close under the light as possible. There was a repressed
excitement in her manner.

“Anne, that isn’t a dot! That’s a flaw in the paper!
A flaw in the paper, you see? So you’ve got to ignore it,
and just go by the spaces—the spaces!”

I had risen and was standing by her. I read out the
figures as I now saw them.

“1 71 22.”

“You see,” said Suzanne, “it’s the same, but not quite.
It’s one o’clock still, and the 22nd—but it’s Cabin 71!
My cabin, Anne!”

We stood staring at each other, so pleased with our
new discovery and so rapt with excitement that you might
have thought we had solved the whole mystery. Then I
fell to earth with a bump.

“But, Suzanne, nothing happened here at one o’clock
on the 22nd?”

Her face fell also. “No—it didn’t.”

Another idea struck me.

“This isn’t your own cabin, is it, Suzanne? I mean
not the one you originally booked?”

“No, the purser changed me into it.”

“I wonder if it was booked before sailing for some one—some
one who didn’t turn up. I suppose we could find
out.”

“We don’t need to find out, Gipsy girl,” cried Suzanne.
“I know! The purser was telling me about it. The
cabin was booked in the name of Mrs. Grey—but it
seems that Mrs. Grey was merely a pseudonym for the
famous Madame Nadina. She’s a celebrated Russian
dancer, you know. She’s never appeared in London, but
Paris has been quite mad about her. She had a terrific
success there all through the War. A thoroughly bad
lot, I believe, but most attractive. The purser expressed
his regrets that she wasn’t on board in a most heart-felt
fashion when he gave me her cabin, and then Colonel
Race told me a lot about her. It seems there were very
queer stories afloat in Paris. She was suspected of espionage,
but they couldn’t prove anything. I rather
fancy Colonel Race was over there simply on that account.
He’s told me some very interesting things. There
was a regular organized gang, not German in origin at
all. In fact the head of it, a man always referred to as
‘the Colonel’ was thought to be an Englishman, but they
never got any clue as to his identity. But there is no
doubt that he controlled a considerable organization of
international crooks. Robberies, espionages, assaults, he
undertook them all—and usually provided an innocent
scapegoat to pay the penalty. Diabolically clever, he
must have been! This woman was supposed to be one of
his agents, but they couldn’t get hold of anything to go
upon. Yes, Anne, we’re on the right tack. Nadina is
just the woman to be mixed up in this business. The appointment
on the morning of the 22nd was with her in
this cabin. But where is she? Why didn’t she sail?”

A light flashed upon me.

“She meant to sail,” I said slowly.

“Then why didn’t she?”

“Because she was dead. Suzanne, Nadina was the
woman murdered at Marlow!”

My mind went back to the bare room in the empty
house, and there swept over me again that indefinable
sensation of menace and evil. With it came the memory
of the falling pencil and the discovery of the roll of
films. A roll of films—that struck a more recent note.
Where had I heard of a roll of films? And why did I
connect that thought with Mrs. Blair?

Suddenly I flew at her and almost shook her in my excitement.

“Your films! The ones that were passed to you
through the ventilator? Wasn’t that on the 22nd?”

“The ones I lost?”

“How do you know they were the same? Why would
any one return them to you that way—in the middle of
the night? It’s a mad idea. No—they were a message,
the films had been taken out of the yellow tin case, and
something else put inside. Have you got it still?”

“I may have used it. No, here it is. I remember I
tossed it into the rack at the side of the bunk.”

She held it out to me.

It was an ordinary round tin cylinder, such as films are
packed in for the tropics. I took it with trembling hand,
but even as I did so my heart leapt. It was noticeably
heavier than it should have been.

With shaking fingers I peeled off the strip of adhesive
plaster that kept it air-tight. I pulled off the lid, and a
stream of dull glassy pebbles rolled onto the bed.

“Pebbles,” I said, keenly disappointed.

“Pebbles?” cried Suzanne.

The ring in her voice excited me.

“Pebbles? No, Anne, not pebbles! Diamonds!”

CHAPTER XV

Diamonds!

I stared, fascinated, at the glassy heap on the
bunk. I picked up one which, but for the weight,
might have been a fragment of broken bottle.

“Are you sure, Suzanne?”

“Oh, yes, my dear. I’ve seen rough diamonds too often
to have any doubts. They’re beauties too, Anne—and
some of them are unique, I should say. There’s a history
behind these.”

“The history we heard to-night,” I cried.

“You mean——?”

“Colonel Race’s story. It can’t be a coincidence. He
told it for a purpose.”

“To see its effect, you mean?”

I nodded.

“Its effect on Sir Eustace?”

“Yes.”

But, even as I said it, a doubt assailed me. Was it Sir
Eustace who had been subjected to a test, or had the story
been told for my benefit? I remembered the impression
I had received on that former night of having been deliberately
“pumped.” For some reason or other, Colonel
Race was suspicious. But where did he come in? What
possible connection could he have with the affair?

“Who is Colonel Race?” I asked.

“That’s rather a question,” said Suzanne. “He’s pretty
well known as a big-game hunter, and, as you heard him
say to-night, he was a distant cousin of Sir Laurence
Eardsley. I’ve never actually met him until this trip.
He journeys to and from Africa a good deal. There’s a
general idea that he does Secret Service work. I don’t
know whether it’s true or not. He’s certainly rather a
mysterious creature.”

“I suppose he came into a lot of money as Sir Laurence
Eardsley’s heir?”

“My dear Anne, he must be rolling. You know, he’d
be a splendid match for you.”

“I can’t have a good go at him with you aboard the
ship,” I said, laughing. “Oh, these married women!”

“We do have a pull,” murmured Suzanne complacently.
“And everybody knows that I am absolutely devoted to
Clarence—my husband, you know. It’s so safe and pleasant
to make love to a devoted wife.”

“It must be very nice for Clarence to be married to
some one like you.”

“Well, I’m wearing to live with! Still, he can always
escape to the Foreign Office, where he fixes his eyeglass
in his eye, and goes to sleep in a big arm-chair. We
might cable him to tell us all he knows about Race. I
love sending cables. And they annoy Clarence so. He
always says a letter would have done as well. I don’t suppose
he’d tell us anything, though. He is so frightfully
discreet. That’s what makes him so hard to live with for
long on end. But let us go on with our matchmaking.
I’m sure Colonel Race is very attracted to you, Anne.
Give him a couple of glances from those wicked eyes of
yours, and the deed is done. Every one gets engaged on
board ship. There’s nothing else to do.”

“I don’t want to get married.”

“Don’t you?” said Suzanne. “Why not? I love being
married—even to Clarence!”

I disdained her flippancy.

“What I want to know is,” I said with determination,
“what has Colonel Race got to do with this? He’s in it
somewhere.”

“You don’t think it was mere chance, his telling that
story?”

“No, I don’t,” I said decidedly. “He was watching
us all narrowly. You remember, some of the diamonds
were recovered, not all. Perhaps these are the missing
ones—or perhaps——”

“Perhaps what?”

I did not answer directly.

“I should like to know,” I said, “what became of the
other young man. Not Eardsley but—what was his
name?—Lucas!”

“We’re getting some light on the thing, anyway. It’s
the diamonds all these people are after. It must have
been to obtain possession of the diamonds that ‘The Man
in the Brown Suit’ killed Nadina.”

“He didn’t kill her,” I said sharply.

“Of course he killed her. Who else could have done
so?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure he didn’t kill her.”

“He went into that house three minutes after her and
came out as white as a sheet.”

“Because he found her dead.”

“But nobody else went in.”

“Then the murderer was in the house already, or else
he got in some other way. There’s no need for him to
pass the lodge, he could have climbed over the wall.”

Suzanne glanced at me sharply.

“‘The Man in the Brown Suit,’” she mused. “Who
was he, I wonder? Anyway, he was identical with the
‘doctor’ in the Tube. He would have had time to remove
his make-up and follow the woman to Marlow. She and
Carton were to have met there, they both had an order to
view the same house, and if they took such elaborate precautions
to make their meeting appear accidental they
must have suspected they were being followed. All the
same, Carton did not know that his shadower was the
‘Man in the Brown Suit.’ When he recognized him, the
shock was so great that he lost his head completely and
stepped back onto the line. That all seems pretty clear,
don’t you think so, Anne?”

I did not reply.

“Yes, that’s how it was. He took the paper from the
dead man, and in his hurry to get away he dropped it.
Then he followed the woman to Marlow. What did he
do when he left there, when he had killed her—or, according
to you, found her dead. Where did he go?”

Still I said nothing.

“I wonder, now,” said Suzanne musingly. “Is it possible
that he induced Sir Eustace Pedler to bring him on
board as his secretary? It would be a unique chance of
getting safely out of England, and dodging the hue and
cry. But how did he square Sir Eustace? It looks as
though he had some hold over him.”

“Or over Pagett,” I suggested in spite of myself.

“You don’t seem to like Pagett, Anne. Sir Eustace
says he’s a most capable and hard-working young man.
And, really, he may be for all we know against him. Well,
to continue my surmises. Rayburn is the ‘Man in the
Brown Suit.’ He had read the paper he dropped. Therefore,
misled by the dot as you were, he attempts to reach
Cabin 17 at one o’clock on the 22nd, having previously
tried to get possession of the cabin through Pagett. On
the way there somebody knifes him——”

“Who?” I interpolated.

“Chichester. Yes, it all fits in. Cable to Lord Nasby
that you have found ‘The Man in the Brown Suit,’ and
your fortune’s made, Anne!”

“There are several things you’ve overlooked.”

“What things? Rayburn’s got a scar, I know—but a
scar can be faked easily enough. He’s the right height
and build. What’s the description of a head with which
you pulverized them at Scotland Yard?”

I trembled. Suzanne was a well-educated, well-read
woman, but I prayed that she might not be conversant
with technical terms of anthropology.

“Dolichocephalic,” I said lightly.

Suzanne looked doubtful.

“Was that it?”

“Yes. Long-headed, you know. A head whose width
is less than 75 per cent. of its length,” I explained fluently.

There was a pause. I was just beginning to breathe
freely when Suzanne said suddenly:

“What’s the opposite?”

“What do you mean—the opposite?”

“Well, there must be an opposite. What do you call
the heads whose breadth is more than 75 per cent. of
their length.”

“Brachycephalic,” I murmured unwillingly.

“That’s it. I thought that was what you said.”

“Did I? It was a slip of the tongue. I meant dolichocephalic,”
I said with all the assurance I could muster.

Suzanne looked at me searchingly. Then she laughed.

“You lie very well, Gipsy girl. But it will save time
and trouble now if you tell me all about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said unwillingly.

“Isn’t there?” said Suzanne gently.

“I suppose I shall have to tell you,” I said slowly. “I’m
not ashamed of it. You can’t be ashamed of something
that just—happens to you. That’s what he did. He was
detestable—rude and ungrateful—but that I think I understand.
It’s like a dog that’s been chained up—or
badly treated—it’ll bite anybody. That’s what he was
like—bitter and snarling. I don’t know why I care—but
I do. I care horribly. Just seeing him has turned
my whole life upside-down. I love him. I want him.
I’ll walk all over Africa barefoot till I find him, and I’ll
make him care for me. I’d die for him. I’d work for
him, slave for him, steal for him, even beg or borrow for
him! There—now you know!”

Suzanne looked at me for a long time.

“You’re very un-English, Gipsy girl,” she said at last.
“There’s not a scrap of the sentimental about you. I’ve
never met any one who was at once so practical and so
passionate. I shall never care for any one like that—mercifully
for me—and yet—and yet I envy you, Gipsy
girl. It’s something to be able to care. Most people can’t.
But what a mercy for your little doctor man that you
didn’t marry him. He doesn’t sound at all the sort of
individual who would enjoy keeping high explosive in the
house! So there’s to be no cabling to Lord Nasby?”

I shook my head.

“And yet you believe him to be innocent?”

“I also believe that innocent people can be hanged.”

“Hm! yes. But, Anne dear, you can face facts, face
them now. In spite of all you say, he may have murdered
this woman.”

“No,” I said. “He didn’t.”

“That’s sentiment.”

“No, it isn’t. He might have killed her. He may even
have followed her there with that idea in his mind. But
he wouldn’t take a bit of black cord and strangle her with
it. If he’d done it, he would have strangled her with his
bare hands.”

Suzanne gave a little shiver. Her eyes narrowed appreciatively.

“Hm! Anne, I am beginning to see why you find this
young man of yours so attractive!”

CHAPTER XVI

I got an opportunity of tackling Colonel Race on
the following morning. The auction of the sweep
had just been concluded, and we walked up and down
the deck together.

“How’s the gipsy this morning? Longing for land and
her caravan?”

I shook my head.

“Now that the sea is behaving so nicely, I feel I should
like to stay on it for ever and ever.”

“What enthusiasm!”

“Well, isn’t it lovely this morning?”

We leant together over the rail. It was a glassy calm.
The sea looked as though it had been oiled. There were
great patches of colour on it, blue, pale green, emerald,
purple and deep orange, like a cubist picture. There was
an occasional flash of silver that showed the flying fish.
The air was moist and warm, almost sticky. Its breath
was like a perfumed caress.

“That was a very interesting story you told us last
night,” I said, breaking the silence.

“Which one?”

“The one about the diamonds.”

“I believe women are always interested in diamonds.”

“Of course we are. By the way, what became of the
other young man? You said there were two of them.”

“Young Lucas? Well, of course, they couldn’t prosecute
one without the other, so he went scot-free too.”

“And what happened to him—eventually, I mean.
Does any one know?”

Colonel Race was looking straight ahead of him out to
sea. His face was as devoid of expression as a mask, but
I had an idea that he did not like my questions. Nevertheless,
he replied readily enough:

“He went to the War and acquitted himself bravely.
He was reported Missing and Wounded—believed killed.”

That told me what I wanted to know. I asked no more.
But more than ever I wondered how much Colonel Race
knew. The part he was playing in all this puzzled me.

One other thing I did. That was to interview the night
steward. With a little financial encouragement, I soon
got him to talk.

“The lady wasn’t frightened, was she, miss? It seemed
a harmless sort of joke. A bet, or so I understood.”

I got it all out of him, little by little. On the voyage
from Cape Town to England one of the passengers had
handed him a roll of films with instructions that they were
to be dropped onto the bunk in Cabin 71 at 1 a.m. on
January 22nd on the outward journey. A lady would be
occupying the cabin, and the affair was described as a bet.
I gathered that the steward had been liberally paid for his
part in the transaction. The lady’s name had not been
mentioned. Of course, as Mrs. Blair went straight into
Cabin 71, interviewing the purser as soon as she got on
board, it never occurred to the steward that she was not
the lady in question. The name of the passenger who
had arranged the transaction was Carton, and his description
tallied exactly with that of the man killed on
the Tube.

So one mystery, at all events, was cleared up, and the
diamonds were obviously the key to the whole situation.

Those last days on the Kilmorden seemed to pass very
quickly. As we drew nearer and nearer to Cape Town,
I was forced to consider carefully my future plans. There
were so many people I wanted to keep an eye on. Mr.
Chichester, Sir Eustace and his secretary, and—yes,
Colonel Race! What was I to do about it? Naturally
it was Chichester who had first claim on my attention.
Indeed, I was on the point of reluctantly dismissing Sir
Eustace and Mr. Pagett from their position of suspicious
characters, when a chance conversation awakened fresh
doubts in my mind.

I had not forgotten Mr. Pagett’s incomprehensible
emotion at the mention of Florence. On the last evening
on board we were all sitting on deck and Sir Eustace addressed
a perfectly innocent question to his secretary. I
forget exactly what it was, something to do with railway
delays in Italy, but at once I noticed that Mr. Pagett
was displaying the same uneasiness which had caught my
attention before. When Sir Eustace claimed Mrs. Blair
for a dance, I quickly moved into the chair next to the
secretary. I was determined to get to the bottom of the
matter.

“I have always longed to go to Italy,” I said. “And
especially to Florence. Didn’t you enjoy it very much
there?”

“Indeed I did, Miss Beddingfeld. If you will excuse
me, there is some correspondence of Sir Eustace’s
that——”

I took hold of him firmly by his coat sleeve.

“Oh, you mustn’t run away!” I cried with the skittish
accent of an elderly dowager. “I’m sure Sir Eustace
wouldn’t like you to leave me alone with no one to talk
to. You never seem to want to talk about Florence. Oh,
Mr. Pagett, I believe you have a guilty secret!”

I still had my hand on his arm, and I could feel the
sudden start he gave.

“Not at all, Miss Beddingfeld, not at all,” he said
earnestly. “I should be only too delighted to tell you all
about it, but there really are some cables——”

“Oh, Mr. Pagett, what a thin pretence. I shall tell
Sir Eustace——”

I got no further. He gave another jump. The man’s
nerves seemed in a shocking state.

“What is it you want to know?”

The resigned martyrdom of his tone made me smile
inwardly.

“Oh, everything! The pictures, the olive trees——”

I paused, rather at a loss myself.

“I suppose you speak Italian?” I resumed.

“Not a word, unfortunately. But of course, with hall
porters and—er—guides.”

“Exactly,” I hastened to reply. “And which was your
favourite picture?”

“Oh, er—the Madonna—er—Raphael, you know.”

“Dear old Florence,” I murmured sentimentally. “So
picturesque on the banks of the Arno. A beautiful river.
And the Duomo, you remember the Duomo?”

“Of course, of course.”

“Another beautiful river, is it not?” I hazarded. “Almost
more beautiful than the Arno?”

“Decidedly so, I should say.”

Emboldened by the success of my little trap, I proceeded
further. But there was little room for doubt.
Mr. Pagett delivered himself into my hands with every
word he uttered. The man had never been in Florence
in his life.

But, if not in Florence, where had he been? In England?
Actually in England at the time of the Mill House
Mystery? I decided on a bold step.

“The curious thing is,” I said, “that I fancied I had
seen you before somewhere. But I must be mistaken—since
you were in Florence at the time. And yet——”

I studied him frankly. There was a hunted look in his
eyes. He passed his tongue over his dry lips.

“Where—er—where——”

“—did I think I had seen you?” I finished for him.
“At Marlow. You know Marlow? Why, of course, how
stupid of me, Sir Eustace has a house there!”

But with an incoherent muttered excuse, my victim rose
and fled.

That night I invaded Suzanne’s cabin, alight with excitement.

“You see, Suzanne,” I urged, as I finished my tale, “he
was in England, in Marlow, at the time of the murder.
Are you so sure now that ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’
is guilty.”

“I’m sure of one thing,” said Suzanne, twinkling unexpectedly.

“What’s that?”

“That ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’ is better looking
than poor Mr. Pagett. No, Anne, don’t get cross. I was
only teasing. Sit down here. Joking apart, I think
you’ve made a very important discovery. Up till now,
we’ve considered Pagett as having an alibi. Now we
know he hasn’t.”

“Exactly,” I said. “We must keep an eye on him.”

“As well as everybody else,” she said ruefully. “Well,
that’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.
That—and finance. No, don’t stick your nose in the air.
I know you are absurdly proud and independent, but
you’ve got to listen to horse sense over this. We’re partners—I
wouldn’t offer you a penny because I liked you,
or because you’re a friendless girl—what I want is a thrill,
and I’m prepared to pay for it. We’re going into this together
regardless of expense. To begin with you’ll come
with me to the Mount Nelson Hotel at my expense, and
we’ll plan out our campaign.”

We argued the point. In the end I gave in. But I
didn’t like it. I wanted to do the thing on my own.

“That’s settled,” said Suzanne at last, getting up and
stretching herself with a big yawn. “I’m exhausted with
my own eloquence. Now then, let us discuss our victims.
Mr. Chichester is going on to Durban. Sir Eustace is
going to the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town and then
up to Rhodesia. He’s going to have a private car on the
railway, and in a moment of expansion, after his fourth
glass of champagne the other night, he offered me a place
in it. I dare say he didn’t really mean it, but, all the
same, he can’t very well back out if I hold him to it.”

“Good,” I approved. “You keep an eye on Sir Eustace
and Pagett, and I take on Chichester. But what about
Colonel Race?”

Suzanne looked at me queerly.

“Anne, you can’t possibly suspect——”

“I do. I suspect everybody. I’m in the mood when
one looks round for the most unlikely person.”

“Colonel Race is going to Rhodesia too,” said Suzanne
thoughtfully. “If we could arrange for Sir Eustace to
invite him also——”

“You can manage it. You can manage anything.”

“I love butter,” purred Suzanne.

We parted on the understanding that Suzanne should
employ her talents to the best advantage.

I felt too excited to go to bed immediately. It was my
last night on board. Early to-morrow morning we should
be in Table Bay.

I slipped up on deck. The breeze was fresh and cool.
The boat was rolling a little in the choppy sea. The decks
were dark and deserted. It was after midnight.

I leaned over the rail, watching the phosphorescent
trail of foam. Ahead of us lay Africa, we were rushing
towards it through the dark water. I felt alone in a wonderful
world. Wrapped in a strange peace, I stood there,
taking no heed of time, lost in a dream.

And suddenly I had a curious intimate premonition of
danger. I had heard nothing, but I swung round instinctively.
A shadowy form had crept up behind me. As I
turned, it sprang. One hand gripped my throat, stifling
any cry I might have uttered. I fought desperately, but
I had no chance. I was half choking from the grip on
my throat, but I bit and clung and scratched in the most
approved feminine fashion. The man was handicapped
by having to keep me from crying out. If he had succeeded
in reaching me unawares it would have been easy
enough for him to sling me overboard with a sudden
heave. The sharks would have taken care of the rest.

Struggle as I would, I felt myself weakening. My
assailant felt it too. He put out all his strength. And
then, running on swift noiseless feet, another shadow
joined in. With one blow of his fist, he sent my opponent
crashing headlong to the deck. Released, I fell back
against the rail, sick and trembling.

My rescuer turned to me with a quick movement.

“You’re hurt!”

There was something savage in his tone—a menace
against the person who had dared to hurt me. Even before
he spoke I had recognized him. It was my man—the
man with the scar.

But that one moment in which his attention had been
diverted to me had been enough for the fallen enemy.
Quick as a flash he had risen to his feet and taken to his
heels down the deck. With an oath Rayburn sprang after
him.

I always hate being out of things. I joined the chase—a
bad third. Round the deck we went to the starboard
side of the ship. There by the saloon door lay the man in
a crumpled heap. Rayburn was bending over him.

“Did you hit him again?” I called breathlessly.

“There was no need,” he replied grimly. “I found him
collapsed by the door. Or else he couldn’t get it open and
is shamming. We’ll soon see about that. And we’ll see
who he is too.”

With a beating heart I drew near. I had realized at
once that my assailant was a bigger man than Chichester.
Anyway, Chichester was a flabby creature who might use
a knife at a pinch, but who would have little strength in
his bare hands.

Rayburn struck a match. We both uttered an ejaculation.
The man was Guy Pagett.

Rayburn appeared absolutely stupefied by the discovery.

“Pagett,” he muttered. “My God, Pagett.”

I felt a slight sense of superiority.

“You seem surprised.”

“I am,” he said heavily. “I never suspected——” He
wheeled suddenly round on me. “And you? You’re not?
You recognized him, I suppose, when he attacked you?”

“No, I didn’t. All the same, I’m not so very surprised.”
He stared at me suspiciously.

“Where do you come in, I wonder? And how much
do you know?”

I smiled.

“A good deal, Mr.—er—Lucas!”

He caught my arm, the unconscious strength of his
grip made me wince.

“Where did you get that name?” he asked hoarsely.

“Isn’t it yours?” I demanded sweetly. “Or do you
prefer to be called ‘The Man in the Brown Suit’?”

That did stagger him. He released my arm and fell
back a pace or two.

“Are you a girl or a witch?” he breathed.

“I’m a friend.” I advanced a step towards him. “I
offered you my help once—I offer it again. Will you
have it?”

The fierceness of his answer took me aback.

“No. I’ll have no truck with you or with any woman.
Do your damnedest.”

As before, my own temper began to rise.

“Perhaps,” I said, “you don’t realize how much in my
power you are? A word from me to the Captain——”

“Say it,” he sneered. Then advancing with a quick
step: “And whilst we’re realizing things, my girl, do you
realize that you’re in my power this minute? I could take
you by the throat like this.” With a swift gesture he
suited the action to the word. I felt his two hands clasp
my throat and press—ever so little. “Like this—and
squeeze the life out of you! And then—like our unconscious
friend here, but with more success—fling your dead
body to the sharks. What do you say to that?”

I said nothing. I laughed. And yet I knew that the
danger was real. Just at that moment he hated me. But
I knew that I loved the danger, loved the feeling of his
hands on my throat. That I would not have exchanged
that moment for any other moment in my life. . . .

With a short laugh he released me.

“What’s your name?” he asked abruptly.

“Anne Beddingfeld.”

“Does nothing frighten you, Anne Beddingfeld?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, with an assumption of coolness I
was far from feeling. “Wasps, sarcastic women, very
young men, cockroaches, and superior shop assistants.”

He gave the same short laugh as before. Then he
stirred the unconscious form of Pagett with his feet.

“What shall we do with this junk? Throw it overboard?”
he asked carelessly.

“If you like,” I answered with equal calm.

“I admire your whole-hearted, blood-thirsty instincts,
Miss Beddingfeld. But we will leave him to recover at
his leisure. He is not seriously hurt.”

“You shrink from a second murder, I see,” I said
sweetly.

“A second murder?”

He looked genuinely puzzled.

“The woman at Marlow,” I reminded him, watching
the effect of my words closely.

An ugly brooding expression settled down on his face.
He seemed to have forgotten my presence.

“I might have killed her,” he said. “Sometimes I believe
that I meant to kill her. . . .”

A wild rush of feeling, hatred of the dead woman,
surged through me. I could have killed her that moment,
had she stood before me. . . . For he must have loved
her once—he must—he must—to have felt like that!

I regained control of myself and spoke in my normal
voice:

“We seem to have said all there is to be said—except
good night.”

“Good night and good-bye, Miss Beddingfeld.”

“Au revoir, Mr. Lucas.”

Again he flinched at the name. He came nearer.

“Why do you say that—au revoir, I mean?”

“Because I have a fancy that we shall meet again.”

“Not if I can help it!”

Emphatic as his tone was, it did not offend me. On
the contrary I hugged myself with secret satisfaction. I
am not quite a fool.

“All the same,” I said gravely, “I think we shall.”

“Why?”

I shook my head, unable to explain the feeling that had
actuated my words.

“I never wish to see you again,” he said suddenly and
violently.

It was really a very rude thing to say, but I only
laughed softly and slipped away into the darkness.

I heard him start after me, and then pause, and a word
floated down the deck. I think it was a “witch”!

CHAPTER XVII

It is really the greatest relief to get off the Kilmorden.

The whole time that I was on board I was conscious
of being surrounded by a network of intrigue. To
put the lid on everything, Guy Pagett must needs engage
in a drunken brawl the last night. It is all very well to
explain it away, but that is what it actually amounts to.
What else would you think if a man comes to you with
a lump the size of an egg on the side of his head and an
eye coloured all the tints of the rainbow?

Of course Pagett would insist on trying to be mysterious
about the whole thing. According to him, you would
think his black eye was the direct result of his devotion
to my interests. His story was extraordinarily vague and
rambling, and it was a long time before I could make
head or tail of it.

To begin with, it appears he caught sight of a man behaving
suspiciously. Those are Pagett’s words. He has
taken them straight from the pages of a German Spy
Story. What he means by a man behaving suspiciously
he doesn’t know himself. I said so to him.

“He was slinking along in a very furtive manner, and
it was the middle of the night, Sir Eustace.”

“Well, what were you doing yourself? Why weren’t
you in bed and asleep like a good Christian?” I demanded
irritably.

“I had been coding those cables of yours, Sir Eustace,
and typing the diary up to date.”

Trust Pagett to be always in the right and a martyr
over it!

“Well?”

“I just thought I would have a look around before
turning in, Sir Eustace. The man was coming down
the passage from your cabin. I thought at once there
was something wrong by the way he looked about him.
He slunk up the stairs by the saloon. I followed him.

“My dear Pagett,” I said, “why shouldn’t the poor
chap go on deck without having his footsteps dogged?
Lots of people even sleep on deck—very uncomfortable,
I’ve always thought. The sailors wash you down with
the rest of the deck at five in the morning.” I shuddered
at the idea.

“Anyway,” I continued, “if you went worrying some
poor devil who was suffering from insomnia, I don’t wonder
he landed you one.”

Pagett looked patient.

“If you would hear me out, Sir Eustace. I was convinced
the man had been prowling about near your cabin
where he had no business to be. The only two cabins
down that passage are yours and Colonel Race’s.”

“Race,” I said, lighting a cigar carefully, “can look
after himself without your assistance, Pagett.” I added
as an afterthought: “So can I.”

Pagett came nearer and breathed heavily as he always
does before imparting a secret.

“You see, Sir Eustace, I fancied—and now indeed I
am sure—it was Rayburn.”

“Rayburn?”

“Yes, Sir Eustace.”

I shook my head.

“Rayburn has far too much sense to attempt to wake
me up in the middle of the night.”

“Quite so, Sir Eustace. I think it was Colonel Race
he went to see. A secret meeting—for orders!”

“Don’t hiss at me, Pagett,” I said, drawing back a
little, “and do control your breathing. Your idea is
absurd. Why should they want to have a secret meeting
in the middle of the night? If they’d anything to
say to each other, they could hob-nob over beef-tea in a
perfectly casual and natural manner.”

I could see that Pagett was not in the least convinced.

“Something was going on last night, Sir Eustace,” he
urged, “or why should Rayburn assault me so brutally.”

“You’re quite sure it was Rayburn?”

Pagett appeared to be perfectly convinced of that. It
was the only part of the story that he wasn’t vague about.

“There’s something very queer about all this,” he said.
“To begin with, where is Rayburn?”

It’s perfectly true that we haven’t seen the fellow since
we came on shore. He did not come up to the hotel with
us. I decline to believe that he is afraid of Pagett, however.

Altogether the whole thing is very annoying. One
of my secretaries has vanished into the blue, and the
other looks like a disreputable prize-fighter. I can’t take
him about with me in his present condition. I shall be
the laughing-stock of Cape Town. I have an appointment
later in the day to deliver old Milray’s billet-doux,
but I shall not take Pagett with me. Confound the fellow
and his prowling ways.

Altogether I am decidedly out of temper. I had poisonous
breakfast with poisonous people. Dutch waitresses
with thick ankles who took half an hour to bring
me a bad bit of fish. And this farce of getting up at
5 a.m. on arrival at the port to see a blinking doctor and
hold your hands above your head simply makes me tired.

Later.

A very serious thing has occurred. I went to my
appointment with the Prime Minister, taking Milray’s
sealed letter. It didn’t look as though it had been tampered
with, but inside was a blank sheet of paper!

Now, I suppose, I’m in the devil of a mess. Why I
ever let that bleating old fool Milray embroil me in the
matter I can’t think.

Pagett is a famous Job’s comforter. He displays a
certain gloomy satisfaction that maddens me. Also, he
has taken advantage of my perturbation to saddle me with
the stationery trunk. Unless he is careful, the next
funeral he attends will be his own.

However, in the end I had to listen to him.

“Supposing, Sir Eustace, that Rayburn had overheard
a word or two of your conversation with Mr. Milray
in the street? Remember, you had no written authority
from Mr. Milray. You accepted Rayburn on his own
valuation.”

“You think Rayburn is a crook, then?” I said slowly.

Pagett did. How far his views were influenced by
resentment over his black eye I don’t know. He made out
a pretty fair case against Rayburn. And the appearance
of the latter told against him. My idea was to do nothing
in the matter. A man who has permitted himself to be
made a thorough fool of is not anxious to broadcast the
fact.

But Pagett, his energy unimpaired by his recent misfortunes,
was all for vigorous measures. He had his way
of course. He bustled out to the police station, sent innumerable
cables, and brought a herd of English and
Dutch officials to drink whiskies and sodas at my expense.

We got Milray’s answer that evening. He knew nothing
of my late secretary! There was only one spot of
comfort to be extracted from the situation.

“At any rate,” I said to Pagett, “you weren’t poisoned.
You had one of your ordinary bilious attacks.”

I saw him wince. It was my only score.

Later.

Pagett is in his element. His brain positively scintillates
with bright ideas. He will have it now that Rayburn
is none other than the famous “Man in the Brown Suit.”
I dare say he is right. He usually is. But all this is
getting unpleasant. The sooner I get off to Rhodesia
the better. I have explained to Pagett that he is not to
accompany me.

“You see, my dear fellow,” I said, “you must remain
here on the spot. You might be required to identify
Rayburn any minute. And, besides, I have my dignity
as an English Member of Parliament to think of. I can’t
go about with a secretary who has apparently recently
been indulging in a vulgar street-brawl.”

Pagett winced. He is such a respectable fellow that
his appearance is pain and tribulation to him.

“But what will you do about your correspondence and
the notes for your speeches, Sir Eustace?”

“I shall manage,” I said airily.

“Your private car is to be attached to the eleven-o’clock
train to-morrow, Wednesday, morning,” Pagett continued.
“I have made all arrangements. Is Mrs. Blair taking a
maid with her?”

“Mrs. Blair?” I gasped.

“She tells me you offered her a place.”

So I did, now I come to think of it. On the night
of the Fancy Dress ball. I even urged her to come.
But I never thought she would! Delightful as she is, I
do not know that I want Mrs. Blair’s society all the way
to Rhodesia and back. Women require such a lot of
attention. And they are confoundedly in the way sometimes.

“Have I asked any one else?” I said nervously. One
does these things in moments of expansion.

“Mrs. Blair seemed to think you had asked Colonel
Race as well.”

I groaned.

“I must have been very drunk if I asked Race. Very
drunk indeed. Take my advice, Pagett, and let your
black eye be a warning to you, don’t go on the bust
again.”

“As you know, I am a teetotaller, Sir Eustace.”

“Much wiser to take the pledge if you have a weakness
that way. I haven’t asked any one else, have I,
Pagett?”

“Not that I know of, Sir Eustace.”

I heaved a sigh of relief.

“There’s Miss Beddingfeld,” I said thoughtfully. “She
wants to get to Rhodesia to dig up bones, I believe. I’ve
a good mind to offer her a temporary job as a secretary.
She can typewrite, I know, for she told me so.”

To my surprise, Pagett opposed the idea vehemently.
He does not like Anne Beddingfeld. Ever since the night
of the black eye, he has displayed uncontrollable emotion
whenever she is mentioned. Pagett is full of mysteries
nowadays.

Just to annoy him, I shall ask the girl. As I said
before, she has extremely nice legs.

CHAPTER XVIII

I don’t suppose that as long as I live I shall forget
my first sight of Table Mountain. I got up frightfully
early and went out on deck. I went right up to
the boat deck, which I believe is a heinous offence, but I
decided to dare something in the cause of solitude. We
were just steaming into Table Bay. There were fleecy
white clouds hovering above Table Mountain, and nestling
on the slopes below, right down to the sea, was the sleeping
town, gilded and bewitched by the morning sunlight.

It made me catch my breath and have that curious
hungry pain inside that seizes one sometimes when one
comes across something that’s extra beautiful. I’m not
very good at expressing these things, but I knew well
enough that I had found, if only for a fleeting moment, the
thing that I had been looking for ever since I left Little
Hampsly. Something new, something hitherto undreamed
of, something that satisfied my aching hunger
for romance.

Perfectly silently, or so it seemed to me, the Kilmorden
glided nearer and nearer. It was still very like a dream.
Like all dreamers, however, I could not let my dream
alone. We poor humans are so anxious not to miss anything.

“This is South Africa,” I kept saying to myself industriously,
“South Africa, South Africa. You are seeing
the world. This is the world. You are seeing it. Think
of it, Anne Beddingfeld, you pudding-head. You’re seeing
the world.”

I had thought that I had the boat deck to myself, but
now I observed another figure leaning over the rail, absorbed
as I had been in the rapidly approaching city.
Even before he turned his head I knew who it was. The
scene of last night seemed unreal and melodramatic in
the peaceful morning sunlight. What must he have
thought of me? It made me hot to realize the things
that I had said. And I hadn’t meant them—or had I?

I turned my head resolutely away and stared hard at
Table Mountain. If Rayburn had come up here to be
alone, I, at least, need not disturb him by advertising my
presence.

But to my intense surprise I heard a light footfall on
the deck behind me, and then his voice, pleasant and
normal:

“Miss Beddingfeld.”

“Yes?”

I turned.

“I want to apologize to you. I behaved like a perfect
boor last night.”

“It—it was a peculiar night,” I said hastily.

It was not a very lucid remark, but it was absolutely
the only thing I could think of.

“Will you forgive me?”

I held out my hand without a word. He took it.

“There’s something else I want to say.” His gravity
deepened. “Miss Beddingfeld, you may not know it, but
you are mixed up in a rather dangerous business.”

“I gathered as much,” I said.

“No, you don’t. You can’t possibly know. I want
to warn you. Leave the whole thing alone. It can’t
concern you really. Don’t let your curiosity lead you to
tamper with other people’s business. No, please don’t get
angry again. I’m not speaking of myself. You’ve no idea
of what you might come up against—these men will stop
at nothing. They are absolutely ruthless. Already you’re
in danger—look at last night. They fancy you know
something. Your only chance is to persuade them that
they’re mistaken. But be careful, always be on the look
out for danger, and, look here, if at any time you should
fall into their hands, don’t try and be clever—tell the
whole truth, it will be your only chance.”

“You make my flesh creep, Mr. Rayburn,” I said, with
some truth. “Why do you take the trouble to warn
me?”

He did not answer for some minutes, then he said in a
low voice:

“It may be the last thing I can do for you. Once on
shore I shall be all right—but I may not get on shore.”

“What?” I cried.

“You see, I’m afraid you’re not the only person on
board who knows that I am ‘The Man in the Brown
Suit.’”

“If you think that I told——” I said hotly.

He reassured me with a smile.

“I don’t doubt you, Miss Beddingfeld. If I ever said
I did, I lied. No, but there’s one person on board who’s
known all along. He’s only got to speak—and my number’s
up. All the same, I’m taking a sporting chance that
he won’t speak.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a man who likes playing a lone hand.
And when the police have got me I should be of no
further use to him. Free, I might be! Well, an hour
will show.”

He laughed rather mockingly, but I saw his face
harden. If he had gambled with Fate, he was a good
gambler. He could lose and smile.

“In any case,” he said lightly, “I don’t suppose we
shall meet again.”

“No,” I said slowly. “I suppose not.”

“So—good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

He gripped my hand hard, just for a minute his curious
light eyes seemed to burn into mine, then he turned
abruptly and left me. I heard his footsteps ringing along
the deck. They echoed and re-echoed. I felt that I
should hear them always. Footsteps—going out of my
life.

I can admit frankly that I did not enjoy the next two
hours. Not till I stood on the wharf, having finished with
most of the ridiculous formalities that bureaucracies require,
did I breathe freely once more. No arrest had
been made, and I realized that it was a heavenly day,
and that I was extremely hungry. I joined Suzanne.
In any case, I was staying the night with her at the
hotel. The boat did not go on to Port Elizabeth and
Durban until the following morning. We got into a taxi
and drove to the Mount Nelson.

It was all heavenly. The sun, the air, the flowers!
When I thought of Little Hampsly in January, the mud
knee-deep, and the sure-to-be-falling rain, I hugged myself
with delight. Suzanne was not nearly so enthusiastic.
She has travelled a great deal of course. Besides, she is
not the type that gets excited before breakfast. She
snubbed me severely when I let out an enthusiastic yelp
at the sight of a giant blue convolvulus.

By the way, I should like to make it clear here and
now that this story will not be a story of South Africa.
I guarantee no genuine local colour—you know the sort
of thing—half a dozen words in italics on every page. I
admire it very much, but I can’t do it. In South Sea
Islands, of course, you make an immediate reference to
bêche-de-mer. I don’t know what bêche-de-mer is, I
never have known, I probably never shall know. I’ve
guessed once or twice and guessed wrong. In South
Africa I know you at once begin to talk about a stoep—I
do know what a stoep is—it’s the thing round a house
and you sit on it. In various other parts of the world
you call it a veranda, a piazza, and a ha-ha. Then again,
there are pawpaws. I had often read of pawpaws. I
discovered at once what they were, because I had one
plumped down in front of me for breakfast. I thought
at first that it was a melon gone bad. The Dutch waitress
enlightened me, and persuaded me to use lemon juice
and sugar and try again. I was very pleased to meet
a pawpaw. I had always vaguely associated it with a
hula-hula, which, I believe, though I may be wrong, is
a kind of straw skirt that Hawaiian girls dance in. No,
I think I am wrong—that is a lava-lava.

At any rate, all these things are very cheering after
England. I can’t help thinking that it would brighten
our cold Island life if one could have a breakfast of
bacon-bacon, and then go out clad in a jumper-jumper
to pay the books.

Suzanne was a little tamer after breakfast. They had
given me a room next to hers with a lovely view right out
over Table Bay. I looked at the view whilst Suzanne
hunted for some special face-cream. When she had found
it and started an immediate application, she became capable
of listening to me.

“Did you see Sir Eustace?” I asked. “He was marching
out of the breakfast room as we went in. He’d had
some bad fish or something and was just telling the head
waiter what he thought about it, and he bounced a peach
on the floor to show how hard it was—only it wasn’t quite
as hard as he thought and it squashed.”

Suzanne smiled.

“Sir Eustace doesn’t like getting up early any more
than I do. But, Anne, did you see Mr. Pagett? I ran
against him in the passage. He’s got a black eye. What
can he have been doing?”

“Only trying to push me overboard,” I replied nonchalantly.

It was a distinct score for me. Suzanne left her face
half anointed and pressed for details. I gave them to
her.

“It all gets more and more mysterious,” she cried. “I
thought I was going to have the soft job sticking to Sir
Eustace, and that you would have all the fun with the
Rev. Edward Chichester, but now I’m not so sure. I
hope Pagett won’t push me off the train some dark night.”

“I think you’re still above suspicion, Suzanne. But,
if the worst happens, I’ll wire to Clarence.”

“That reminds me—give me a cable form. Let me
see now, what shall I say. ‘Implicated in the most thrilling
mystery please send me a thousand pounds at once
Suzanne.’”

I took the form from her, and pointed out that she
could eliminate a “the,” an “a,” and possibly, if she didn’t
care about being polite, a “please.” Suzanne, however,
appears to be perfectly reckless in money matters. Instead
of attending to my economical suggestions, she
added three words more: “enjoying myself hugely.”

Suzanne was engaged to lunch with friends of hers,
who came to the hotel about eleven o’clock to fetch her.
I was left to my own devices. I went down through the
grounds of the hotel, crossed the tram-lines and followed a
cool shady avenue right down till I came to the main
street. I strolled about, seeing the sights, enjoying the
sunlight and the black-faced sellers of flowers and fruits.
I also discovered a place where they had the most delicious
ice-cream sodas. Finally, I bought a sixpenny
basket of peaches and retraced my steps to the hotel.

To my surprise and pleasure I found a note awaiting
me. It was from the curator of the Museum. He had
read of my arrival on the Kilmorden, in which I was described
as the daughter of the late Professor Beddingfeld.
He had known my father slightly and had had a great
admiration for him. He went on to say that his wife
would be delighted if I would come out and have tea
with them that afternoon at their Villa at Muizenberg.
He gave me instructions for getting there.

It was pleasant to think that poor Papa was still remembered
and highly thought of. I foresaw that I would
have to be personally escorted round the Museum before
I left Cape Town, but I risked that. To most people it
would have been a treat—but one can have too much
of a good thing if one is brought up on it, morning, noon
and night.

I put on my best hat (one of Suzanne’s cast-offs) and
my least crumpled white linen and started off after lunch.
I caught a fast train to Muizenberg and got there in
about half an hour. It was a nice trip. We wound slowly
round the base of Table Mountain, and some of the
flowers were lovely. My geography being weak, I had
never fully realized that Cape Town is on a peninsula,
consequently I was rather surprised on getting out of the
train to find myself facing the sea once more. There was
some perfectly entrancing bathing going on. The people
had short curved boards and came floating in on the waves.
It was far too early to go to tea. I made for the bathing
pavilion, and when they said would I have a surf board,
I said “Yes, please.” Surfing looks perfectly easy. It
isn’t. I say no more. I got very angry and fairly hurled
my plank from me. Nevertheless, I determined to return
on the first possible opportunity and have another go.
I would not be beaten. Quite by mistake I then got a
good run on my board, and came out delirious with happiness.
Surfing is like that. You are either vigorously
cursing or else you are idiotically pleased with yourself.

I found the Villa Medgee after some little difficulty.
It was right up on the side of the mountain, isolated from
the other cottages and villas. I rang the bell, and a smiling
Kafir boy answered it.

“Mrs. Raffini?” I inquired.

He ushered me in, preceded me down the passage and
flung open a door. Just as I was about to pass in, I
hesitated. I felt a sudden misgiving. I stepped over
the threshold and the door swung sharply to behind me.

A man rose from his seat behind a table and came
forward with outstretched hand.

“So glad we have persuaded you to visit us, Miss Beddingfeld,”
he said.

He was a tall man, obviously a Dutchman, with a
flaming orange beard. He did not look in the least like
the curator of a museum. In fact, I realized in a flash
that I had made a fool of myself.

I was in the hands of the enemy.

CHAPTER XIX

It reminded me forcibly of Episode III in “The Perils
of Pamela.” How often had I not sat in the sixpenny
seats, eating a twopenny bar of milk chocolate,
and yearning for similar things to happen to me. Well,
they had happened with a vengeance. And somehow it
was not nearly so amusing as I had imagined. It’s all
very well on the screen—you have the comfortable knowledge
that there’s bound to be an Episode IV. But in
real life there was absolutely no guarantee that Anna
the Adventuress might not terminate abruptly at the end
of any Episode.

Yes, I was in a tight place. All the things that Rayburn
had said that morning came back to me with unpleasant
distinctness. Tell the truth, he had said. Well,
I could always do that, but was it going to help me? To
begin with, would my story be believed? Would they consider
it likely or possible that I had started off on this
mad escapade simply on the strength of a scrap of paper
smelling of moth balls? It sounded to me a wildly incredible
tale. In that moment of cold sanity I cursed
myself for a melodramatic idiot, and yearned for the
peaceful boredom of Little Hampsly.

All this passed through my mind in less time than it
takes to tell. My first instinctive movement was to step
backwards and feel for the handle of the door. My
captor merely grinned.

“Here you are and here you stay,” he remarked facetiously.

I did my best to put a bold face upon the matter.

“I was invited to come here by the curator of the Cape
Town Museum. If I have made a mistake——”

“A mistake? Oh, yes, a big mistake!”

He laughed coarsely.

“What right have you to detain me? I shall inform
the police——”

“Yap, yap, yap—like a little toy dog.” He laughed.

I sat down on a chair.

“I can only conclude that you are a dangerous lunatic,”
I said coldly.

“Indeed?”

“I should like to point out to you that my friends are
perfectly well aware where I have gone, and that if I
have not returned by this evening, they will come in
search of me. You understand?”

“So your friends know where you are, do they? Which
of them?”

Thus challenged, I did a lightning calculation of
chances. Should I mention Sir Eustace? He was a well-known
man, and his name might carry weight. But if
they were in touch with Pagett, they might know I was
lying. Better not risk Sir Eustace.

“Mrs. Blair, for one,” I said lightly. “A friend of
mine with whom I am staying.”

“I think not,” said my captor, slyly shaking his orange
head. “You have not seen her since eleven this morning.
And you received our note, bidding you come here, at
lunch-time.”

His words showed me how closely my movements had
been followed, but I was not going to give in without a
fight.

“You are very clever,” I said. “Perhaps you have
heard of that useful invention, the telephone? Mrs. Blair
called me up on it when I was resting in my room after
lunch. I told her then where I was going this afternoon.”

To my great satisfaction, I saw a shade of uneasiness
pass over his face. Clearly he had overlooked the possibility
that Suzanne might have telephoned to me. I
wished she really had done so!

“Enough of this,” he said harshly, rising.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, still
endeavouring to appear composed.

“Put you where you can do no harm in case your
friends come after you.”

For a moment my blood ran cold, but his next words
reassured me.

“To-morrow you’ll have some questions to answer, and
after you’ve answered them we shall know what to do
with you. And I can tell you, young lady, we’ve more
ways than one of making obstinate little fools talk.”

It was not cheering, but it was at least a respite. I
had until to-morrow. This man was clearly an underling
obeying the orders of a superior. Could that superior by
any chance be Pagett?

He called and two Kafirs appeared. I was taken upstairs.
Despite my struggles, I was gagged and then
bound hand and foot. The room into which they had
taken me was a kind of attic right under the roof. It
was dusty and showed little signs of having been occupied.
The Dutchman made a mock bow and withdrew,
closing the door behind him.

I was quite helpless. Turn and twist as I would, I
could not loosen my hands in the slightest degree, and
the gag prevented me from crying out. If, by any possible
chance, any one did come to the house, I could
do nothing to attract their attention. Down below I
heard the sound of a door shutting. Evidently the Dutchman
was going out.

It was maddening not to be able to do anything. I
strained again at my bonds, but the knots held. I desisted
at last, and either fainted or fell asleep. When I
awoke I was in pain all over. It was quite dark now,
and I judged that the night must be well advanced, for
the moon was high in the heavens and shining down
through the dusty skylight. The gag was half choking
me and the stiffness and pain were unendurable.

It was then that my eyes fell on a bit of broken glass
lying in the corner. A moonbeam slanted right down
on it, and its glistening had caught my attention. As
I looked at it, an idea came into my head.

My arms and legs were helpless, but surely I could still
roll. Slowly and awkwardly, I set myself in motion. It
was not easy. Besides being extremely painful, since I
could not guard my face with my arms, it was also
exceedingly difficult to keep any particular direction.

I tended to roll in every direction except the one I
wanted to go. In the end, however, I came right up
against my objective. It almost touched my bound hands.

Even then it was not easy. It took an infinity of time
before I could wriggle the glass into such a position,
wedged against the wall, that it would rub up and down
on my bonds. It was a long heart-rending process, and
I almost despaired, but in the end I succeeded in sawing
through the cords that bound my wrists. The rest was a
matter of time. Once I had restored the circulation to
my hands by rubbing the wrists vigorously, I was able
to undo the gag. One or two full breaths did a lot
for me.

Very soon I had undone the last knot, though even
then it was some time before I could stand on my feet,
but at last I stood erect, swinging my arms to and fro
to restore the circulation, and wishing above all things
that I could get hold of something to eat.

I waited about a quarter of an hour, to be quite sure of
my recovered strength. Then I tiptoed noiselessly to the
door. As I had hoped, it was not locked, only latched.
I unlatched it and peeped cautiously out.

Everything was still. The moonlight came in through
a window and showed me the dusty uncarpeted staircase.
Cautiously I crept down it. Still no sound—but as I
stood on the landing below, a faint murmur of voices
reached me. I stopped dead and stood there for some
time. A clock on the wall registered the fact that it was
after midnight.

I was fully aware of the risks I might run if I descended
lower, but my curiosity was too much for me.
With infinite precautions I prepared to explore. I crept
softly down the last flight of stairs and stood in the square
hall. I looked round me—and then caught my breath
with a gasp. A Kafir boy was sitting by the hall door.
He had not seen me, indeed I soon realized by his breathing
that he was fast asleep.

Should I retreat, or should I go on? The voices came
from the room I had been shown into on arrival. One of
them was that of my Dutch friend, the other I could not
for the moment recognize, though it seemed vaguely
familiar.

In the end I decided that it was clearly my duty to
hear all I could. I must risk the Kafir boy waking up.
I crossed the hall noiselessly and knelt by the study door.
For a moment or two I could hear no better. The voices
were louder, but I could not distinguish what they said.

I applied my eye to the keyhole instead of my ear. As
I had guessed, one of the speakers was the big Dutchman.
The other man was sitting outside my circumscribed
range of vision.

Suddenly he rose to get himself a drink. His back,
black clad and decorous, came into view. Even before
he turned round I knew who he was.

Mr. Chichester!

Now I began to make out the words.

“All the same, it is dangerous. Suppose her friends
come after her?”

It was the big man speaking. Chichester answered
him. He had dropped his clerical voice entirely. No
wonder I had not recognized it.

“All bluff. They haven’t an idea where she is.”

“She spoke very positively.”

“I dare say. I’ve looked into the matter, and we’ve
nothing to fear. Anyway, it’s the ‘Colonel’s’ orders.
You don’t want to go against them, I suppose?”

The Dutchman ejaculated something in his own language.
I judged it to be a hasty disclaimer.

“But why not knock her on the head?” he growled.
“It would be simple. The boat is all ready. She could
be taken out to sea?”

“Yes,” said Chichester meditatively. “That is what I
should do. She knows too much, that is certain. But the
‘Colonel’ is a man who likes to play a lone hand—though
no one else must do so.” Something in his own words
seemed to awaken a memory that annoyed him. “He
wants information of some kind from this girl.”

He had paused before the information, and the Dutchman
was quick to catch him up.

“Information?”

“Something of the kind.”

“Diamonds,” I said to myself.

“And now,” continued Chichester, “give me the lists.”

For a long time their conversation was quite incomprehensible
to me. It seemed to deal with large quantities
of vegetables. Dates were mentioned, prices, and various
names of places which I did not know. It was quite
half an hour before they had finished their checking and
counting.

“Good,” said Chichester, and there was a sound as
though he pushed back his chair. “I will take these
with me for the ‘Colonel’ to see.”

“When do you leave?”

“Ten o’clock to-morrow morning will do.”

“Do you want to see the girl before you go?”

“No. There are strict orders that no one is to see her
until the ‘Colonel’ comes. Is she all right?”

“I looked in on her when I came in for dinner. She
was asleep, I think. What about food?”

“A little starvation will do no harm. The ‘Colonel’
will be here some time to-morrow. She will answer questions
better if she is hungry. No one had better go near
her till then. Is she securely tied up?”

The Dutchman laughed.

“What do you think?”

They both laughed. So did I, under my breath. Then,
as the sounds seemed to betoken that they were about to
come out of the room, I beat a hasty retreat. I was just
in time. As I reached the head of the stairs, I heard the
door of the room open, and at the same time the Kafir
stirred and moved. My retreat by the way of the hall
door was not to be thought of. I retired prudently to
the attic, gathered my bonds round me and lay down
again on the floor, in case they should take it into their
heads to come and look at me.

They did not do so, however. After about an hour, I
crept down the stairs, but the Kafir by the door was
awake and humming softly to himself. I was anxious to
get out of the house, but I did not quite see how to
manage it.

In the end I was forced to retreat to the attic again.
The Kafir was clearly on guard for the night. I remained
there patiently all through the sounds of early morning
preparation. The men breakfasted in the hall, I could
hear their voices distinctly floating up the stairs. I was
getting thoroughly unnerved. How on earth was I to
get out of the house?

I counselled myself to be patient. A rash move might
spoil everything. After breakfast came the sounds of
Chichester departing. To my intense relief, the Dutchman
accompanied him.

I waited breathlessly. Breakfast was being cleared
away, the work of the house was being done. At last,
the various activities seemed to die down. I slipped out
from my lair once more. Very carefully I crept down the
stairs. The hall was empty. Like a flash I was across
it, had unlatched the door, and was outside in the sunshine.
I ran down the drive like one possessed.

Once outside, I resumed a normal walk. People stared
at me curiously, and I do not wonder. My face and
clothes must have been covered in dust from rolling about
in the attic. At last I came to a garage. I went in.

“I have met with an accident,” I explained. “I want a
car to take me to Cape Town at once. I must catch the
boat to Durban.”

I had not long to wait. Ten minutes later I was speeding
along in the direction of Cape Town. I must know if
Chichester was on the boat. Whether to sail on her myself
or not, I could not determine, but in the end I decided
to do so. Chichester would not know that I had
seen him in the Villa at Muizenberg. He would doubtless
lay further traps for me, but I was forewarned. And he
was the man I was after, the man who was seeking the
diamonds on behalf of the mysterious “Colonel.”

Alas, for my plans! As I arrived at the docks, the Kilmorden
Castle was steaming out to sea. And I had no
means of knowing whether Chichester had sailed on her
or not!

CHAPTER XX

I drove to the hotel. There was no one in the
lounge that I knew. I ran upstairs and tapped on
Suzanne’s door. Her voice bade me “come in.”
When she saw who it was she literally fell on my neck.

“Anne, dear, where have you been? I’ve been worried
to death about you. What have you been doing?”

“Having adventures,” I replied. “Episode III of ‘The
Perils of Pamela.’”

I told her the whole story. She gave vent to a deep
sigh when I finished.

“Why do these things always happen to you?” she
demanded plaintively. “Why does no one gag me and
bind me hand and foot?”

“You wouldn’t like it if they did,” I assured her. “To
tell you the truth, I’m not nearly so keen on having
adventures myself as I was. A little of that sort of
thing goes a long way.”

Suzanne seemed unconvinced. An hour or two of gagging
and binding would have changed her views quickly
enough. Suzanne likes thrills, but she hates being uncomfortable.

“And what are we all doing now?” she asked.

“I don’t quite know,” I said thoughtfully. “You still
go to Rhodesia, of course, to keep an eye on Pagett——”

“And you?”

That was just my difficulty. Had Chichester gone on
the Kilmorden, or had he not? Did he mean to carry out
his original plan of going to Durban? The hour of his
leaving Muizenberg seemed to point to an affirmative
answer to both questions. In that case, I might go to
Durban by train. I fancied that I should get there before
the boat. On the other hand, if the news of my escape
were wired to Chichester, and also the information that
I had left Cape Town for Durban, nothing was simpler
for him than to leave the boat at either Port Elizabeth
or East London and so give me the slip completely.

It was rather a knotty problem.

“We’ll inquire about trains to Durban anyway,” I
said.

“And it’s not too late for morning tea,” said Suzanne.
“We’ll have it in the lounge.”

The Durban train left at 8.15 that evening, so they
told me at the office. For the moment I postponed decision
and joined Suzanne for somewhat belated “eleven-o’clock
tea.”

“Do you feel that you would really recognize Chichester
again—in any other disguise, I mean?” asked Suzanne.

I shook my head ruefully.

“I certainly didn’t recognize him as the stewardess, and
never should have but for your drawing.”

“The man’s a professional actor, I’m sure of it,” said
Suzanne thoughtfully. “His make-up is perfectly marvellous.
He might come off the boat as a navvy or something,
and you’d never spot him.”

“You’re very cheering,” I said.

At that minute, Colonel Race stepped in through the
window and came and joined us.

“What is Sir Eustace doing?” asked Suzanne. “I
haven’t seen him about to-day.”

Rather an odd expression passed over the Colonel’s
face.

“He’s got a little trouble of his own to attend to which
is keeping him busy.”

“Tell us about it.”

“I mustn’t tell tales out of school.”

“Tell us something—even if you have to invent it for
our special benefit.”

“Well, what would you say to the famous ‘Man in the
Brown Suit’ having made the voyage with us?”

“What?”

I felt the colour die out of my face and then surge
back again. Fortunately Colonel Race was not looking
at me.

“It’s a fact, I believe. Every port watched for him
and he bamboozled Pedler into bringing him out as his
secretary!”

“Not Mr. Pagett?”

“Oh, not Pagett—the other fellow. Rayburn, he called
himself.”

“Have they arrested him?” asked Suzanne. Under the
table she gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. I waited
breathlessly for an answer.

“He seems to have disappeared into thin air.”

“How does Sir Eustace take it?”

“Regards it as a personal insult offered him by Fate.”

An opportunity of hearing Sir Eustace’s views on the
matter presented itself later in the day. We were awakened
from a refreshing afternoon nap by a page-boy with
a note. In touching terms it requested the pleasure of
our company at tea in his sitting-room.

The poor man was indeed in a pitiable state. He
poured out his troubles to us, encouraged by Suzanne’s
sympathetic murmurs. (She does that sort of thing very
well.)

“First a perfectly strange woman has the impertinence
to get herself murdered in my house—on purpose to annoy
me, I do believe. Why my house? Why, of all the
houses in Great Britain, choose the Mill House? What
harm had I ever done the woman that she must needs
get herself murdered there?”

Suzanne made one of her sympathetic noises again and
Sir Eustace proceeded in a still more aggrieved tone.

“And, if that’s not enough, the fellow who murdered her
has the impudence, the colossal impudence, to attach himself
to me as my secretary. My secretary, if you please!
I’m tired of secretaries, I won’t have any more secretaries.
Either they’re concealed murderers or else they’re
drunken brawlers. Have you seen Pagett’s black eye?
But of course you have. How can I go about with a
secretary like that? And his face is such a nasty shade
of yellow too—just the colour that doesn’t go with a
black eye. I’ve done with secretaries—unless I have a
girl. A nice girl, with liquid eyes, who’ll hold my hand
when I’m feeling cross. What about you, Miss Anne.
Will you take on the job?”

“How often shall I have to hold your hand?” I asked,
laughing.

“All day long,” replied Sir Eustace gallantly.

“I shan’t get much typing done at that rate,” I reminded
him.

“That doesn’t matter. All this work is Pagett’s idea.
He works me to death. I’m looking forward to leaving
him behind in Cape Town.”

“He is staying behind?”

“Yes, he’ll enjoy himself thoroughly sleuthing about
after Rayburn. That’s the sort of thing suits Pagett
down to the ground. He adores intrigue. But I’m quite
serious in my offer. Will you come? Mrs. Blair here
is a competent chaperon, and you can have a half-holiday
every now and again to dig for bones.”

“Thank you very much, Sir Eustace,” I said cautiously,
“but I think I’m leaving for Durban to-night.”

“Now don’t be an obstinate girl. Remember, there are
lots of lions in Rhodesia. You’ll like lions. All girls do.”

“Will they be practising low jumps?” I asked, laughing.
“No, thank you very much, but I must go to
Durban.”

Sir Eustace looked at me, sighed deeply, then opened
the door of the adjoining room and called to Pagett.

“If you’ve quite finished your afternoon sleep, my dear
fellow, perhaps you’d do a little work for change.”

Guy Pagett appeared in the doorway. He bowed to us
both, starting slightly at the sight of me, and replied in a
melancholy voice:

“I have been typing that memorandum all this afternoon,
Sir Eustace.”

“Well, stop typing it then. Go down to the Trade
Commissioner’s Office, or the Board of Agriculture, or the
Chamber of Mines, or one of these places, and ask them
to lend me some kind of a woman to take to Rhodesia.
She must have liquid eyes and not object to my holding
her hand.”

“Yes, Sir Eustace. I will ask for a competent short-hand-typist.”

“Pagett’s a malicious fellow,” said Sir Eustace, after
the secretary had departed. “I’d be prepared to bet that
he’ll pick out some slab-faced creature on purpose to
annoy me. She must have nice feet too—I forgot to mention that.”

I clutched Suzanne excitedly by the hand and almost
dragged her along to her room.

“Now, Suzanne,” I said, “we’ve got to make plans—and
make them quickly. Pagett is staying behind here—you
heard that?”

“Yes. I suppose that means that I shan’t be allowed
to go to Rhodesia—which is very annoying, because I
want to go to Rhodesia. How tiresome.”

“Cheer up,” I said. “You’re going all right. I don’t
see how you could back out at the last moment without
its appearing frightfully suspicious. And, besides, Pagett
might suddenly be summoned by Sir Eustace, and it
would be far harder for you to attach yourself to him for
the journey up.”

“It would hardly be respectable,” said Suzanne, dimpling.
“I should have to pretend a fatal passion for him
as an excuse.”

“On the other hand, if you were there when he arrived,
it would all be perfectly simple and natural. Besides, I
don’t think we ought to lose sight of the other two entirely.”

“Oh, Anne, you surely can’t suspect Colonel Race or
Sir Eustace?”

“I suspect everybody,” I said darkly, “and if you’ve
read any detective stories, Suzanne, you must know that
it’s always the most unlikely person who’s the villain.
Lots of criminals have been cheerful fat men like Sir
Eustace.”

“Colonel Race isn’t particularly fat—or particularly
cheerful either.”

“Sometimes they’re lean and saturnine,” I retorted.
“I don’t say I seriously suspect either of them, but, after
all, the woman was murdered in Sir Eustace’s house——”

“Yes, yes, we needn’t go over all that again. I’ll watch
him for you, Anne, and if he gets any fatter and any
more cheerful, I’ll send you a telegram at once. ‘Sir E.
swelling. Highly suspicious. Come at once.’”

“Really, Suzanne,” I cried, “you seem to think all this
is a game!”

“I know I do,” said Suzanne, unabashed. “It seems
like that. It’s your fault, Anne. I’ve got imbued with
your ‘Let’s have an adventure’ spirit. It doesn’t seem a
bit real. Dear me, if Clarence knew that I was running
about Africa tracking dangerous criminals, he’d have a
fit.”

“Why don’t you cable him about it?” I asked sarcastically.

Suzanne’s sense of humour always fails her when it
comes to sending cables. She considered my suggestion
in perfectly good faith.

“I might. It would have to be a very long one.” Her
eyes brightened at the thought. “But I think it’s better
not. Husbands always want to interfere with perfectly
harmless amusements.”

“Well,” I said, summing up the situation, “you will
keep an eye on Sir Eustace and Colonel Race——”

“I know why I’ve got to watch Sir Eustace,” interrupted
Suzanne, “because of his figure and his humorous
conversation. But I think it’s carrying it rather far to
suspect Colonel Race, I do indeed. Why, he’s something
to do with the Secret Service. Do you know, Anne, I
believe the best thing we could do would be to confide
in him and tell him the whole story.”

I objected vigorously to this unsporting proposal. I
recognized in it the disastrous effects of matrimony. How
often have I not heard a perfectly intelligent female say,
in the tone of one clinching an argument, “Edgar says——”
And all the time you are perfectly aware that
Edgar is a perfect fool. Suzanne, by reason of her married
state, was yearning to lean upon some man or other.

However, she promised faithfully that she would not
breathe a word to Colonel Race, and we went on with our
plan-making.

“It’s quite clear that I must stay here and watch
Pagett, and this is the best way to do it. I must pretend
to leave for Durban this evening, take my luggage down
and so on, but really I shall go to some small hotel in
the town. I can alter my appearance a little—wear a fair
toupee and one of those thick white lace veils, and I shall
have a much better chance of seeing what he’s really at
if he thinks I’m safely out of the way.”

Suzanne approved this plan heartily. We made due and
ostentatious preparations, inquiring once more about the
departure of the train at the office and packing my luggage.

We dined together in the restaurant. Colonel Race did
not appear, but Sir Eustace and Pagett were at their table
in the window. Pagett left the table half-way through the
meal, which annoyed me, as I had planned to say goodbye
to him. However, doubtless Sir Eustace would do
as well. I went over to him when I had finished.

“Good-bye, Sir Eustace,” I said. “I’m off to-night to
Durban.”

Sir Eustace sighed heavily.

“So I heard. You wouldn’t like me to come with you,
would you?”

“I should love it.”

“Nice girl. Sure you won’t change your mind and
come and look for lions in Rhodesia?”

“Quite sure.”

“He must be a very handsome fellow,” said Sir Eustace
plaintively. “Some young whipper-snapper in Durban, I
suppose, who puts my mature charms completely in the
shade. By the way, Pagett’s going down in the car in a
minute or two. He could take you to the station.”

“Oh, no, thank you,” I said hastily. “Mrs. Blair and
I have got our own taxi ordered.”

To go down with Guy Pagett was the last thing I
wanted! Sir Eustace looked at me attentively.

“I don’t believe you like Pagett. I don’t blame you.
Of all the officious, interfering asses—going about with
the air of a martyr, and doing everything he can to annoy and upset me!”

“What has he done now?” I inquired with some curiosity.

“He’s got hold of a secretary for me. You never saw
such a woman! Forty, if she’s a day, wears pince-nez
and sensible boots and an air of brisk efficiency that will
be the death of me. A regular slab-faced woman.”

“Won’t she hold your hand?”

“I devoutly hope not!” exclaimed Sir Eustace. “That
would be the last straw. Well, good-bye, liquid eyes. If
I shoot a lion I shan’t give you the skin—after the base
way you’ve deserted me.”

He squeezed my hand warmly and we parted. Suzanne
was waiting for me in the hall. She was to come down to
see me off.

“Let’s start at once,” I said hastily, and motioned to
the man to get a taxi.

Then a voice behind me made me start:

“Excuse me, Miss Beddingfeld, but I’m just going
down in a car. I can drop you and Mrs. Blair at the
station.”

“Oh, thank you,” I said hastily. “But there’s no
need to trouble you. I——”

“No trouble at all, I assure you. Put the luggage in,
porter.”

I was helpless. I might have protested further, but a
slight warning nudge from Suzanne urged me to be on
my guard.

“Thank you, Mr. Pagett,” I said coldly.

We all got into the car. As we raced down the road
into the town, I racked my brains for something to say.
In the end Pagett himself broke the silence.

“I have secured a very capable secretary for Sir
Eustace,” he observed. “Miss Pettigrew.”

“He wasn’t exactly raving about her just now,” I remarked.

Pagett looked at me coldly.

“She is a proficient shorthand-typist,” he said repressively.

We pulled up in front of the station. Here surely he
would leave us. I turned with outstretched hand—but
no.

“I’ll come and see you off. It’s just eight o’clock,
your train goes in a quarter of an hour.”

He gave efficient directions to porters. I stood helpless,
not daring to look at Suzanne. The man suspected. He
was determined to make sure that I did go by the train.
And what could I do? Nothing. I saw myself, in a
quarter of an hour’s time, steaming out of the station
with Pagett planted on the platform waving me adieu.
He had turned the tables on me adroitly. His manner
towards me had changed, moreover. It was full of an
uneasy geniality which sat ill upon him, and which nauseated
me. The man was an oily hypocrite. First he
tried to murder me, and now he paid me compliments!
Did he imagine for one minute that I hadn’t recognized
him that night on the boat? No, it was a pose, a pose
which he forced me to acquiesce in, his tongue in his
cheek all the while.

Helpless as a sheep, I moved along under his expert
directions. My luggage was piled in my sleeping compartment—I
had a two-berth one to myself. It was twelve minutes past eight.
In three minutes the train would start.

But Paggett had reckoned without Suzanne.

“It will be a terribly hot journey, Anne,” she said suddenly.
“Especially going through the Karoo to-morrow.
You’ve got some eau-de-Cologne or lavender water with
you, haven’t you?”

My cue was plain.

“Oh, dear,” I cried. “I left my eau-de-Cologne on the
dressing-table at the hotel.”

Suzanne’s habit of command served her well. She
turned imperiously to Pagett.

“Mr. Pagett. Quick. You’ve just time. There’s a
chemist almost opposite the station. Anne must have
some eau-de-Cologne.”

He hesitated, but Suzanne’s imperative manner was too
much for him. She is a born autocrat. He went. Suzanne
followed him with her eyes till he disappeared.

“Quick, Anne, get out the other side—in case he hasn’t
really gone, but is watching us from the end of the platform.
Never mind your luggage. You can telegraph about
that to-morrow. Oh, if only the train starts on
time!”

I opened the gate on the opposite side to the platform
and climbed down. Nobody was observing me. I could
just see Suzanne standing where I had left her, looking
up at the train and apparently chatting to me at the
window. A whistle blew, the train began to draw out.
Then I heard feet racing furiously up the platform. I
withdrew to the shadow of a friendly bookstall and
watched.

Suzanne turned from waving her handkerchief to the
retreating train.

“Too late, Mr. Pagett,” she said cheerfully. “She’s
gone. Is that the eau-de-Cologne? What a pity we
didn’t think of it sooner!”

They passed not far from me on their way out of the
station. Guy Pagett was extremely hot. He had evidently
run all the way to the chemist and back.

“Shall I get you a taxi, Mrs. Blair?”

Suzanne did not fail in her rôle.

“Yes, please. Can’t I give you a lift back? Have you
much to do for Sir Eustace? Dear me, I wish Anne
Beddingfeld was coming with us to-morrow. I don’t like
the idea of a young girl like that travelling off to Durban
all by herself. But she was set upon it. Some little attraction
there, I fancy——”

They passed out of ear-shot. Clever Suzanne. She
had saved me.

I allowed a minute or two to elapse and then I too made
my way out of the station, almost colliding as I did so
with a man—an unpleasant-looking man with a nose
disproportionately big for his face.

CHAPTER XXI

I had no further difficulty in carrying out my plans.
I found a small hotel in a back street, got a room
there, paid a deposit as I had no luggage with me,
and went placidly to bed.

On the following morning I was up early and went out
into the town to purchase a modest wardrobe. My idea
was to do nothing until after the departure of the eleven-o’clock
train to Rhodesia with most of the party on board.
Pagett was not likely to indulge in any nefarious activities
until he had got rid of them. Accordingly I took a
tram out of the town and proceeded to enjoy a country
walk. It was comparatively cool, and I was glad to stretch
my legs after the long voyage and my close confinement
at Muizenberg.

A lot hinges on small things. My shoe-lace came untied,
and I stopped to do it up. The road had just turned
a corner, and as I was bending over the offending shoe a
man came right round and almost walked into me. He
lifted his hat, murmuring an apology, and went on. It
struck me at the time that his face was vaguely familiar,
but at the moment I thought no more of it. I looked at
my wrist-watch. The time was getting on. I turned
my feet in the direction of Cape Town.

There was a tram on the point of going and I had to
run for it. I heard other footsteps running behind me.
I swung myself on and so did the other runner. I recognized
him at once. It was the man who had passed me
on the road when my shoe came untied, and in a flash
I knew why his face was familiar. It was the small man
with the big nose whom I had run into on leaving the
station the night before.

The coincidence was rather startling. Could it be possible
that the man was deliberately following me? I
resolved to test that as promptly as possible. I rang
the bell and got off at the next stop. The man did not
get off. I withdrew into the shadow of a shop doorway
and watched. He alighted at the next stop and walked
back in my direction.

The case was clear enough. I was being followed. I
had crowed too soon. My victory over Guy Pagett took
on another aspect. I hailed the next tram and, as I expected,
my shadower also got on. I gave myself up to
some very serious thinking.

It was perfectly apparent that I had stumbled on a
bigger thing than I knew. The murder in the house at
Marlow was not an isolated incident committed by a
solitary individual. I was up against a gang, and, thanks
to Colonel Race’s revelations to Suzanne, and what I had
overheard at the house at Muizenberg, I was beginning
to understand some of its manifold activities. Systematized
crime, organized by the man known to his followers
as the “Colonel”! I remembered some of the talk I
had heard on board ship, of the strike on the Rand and
the causes underlying it—and the belief that some secret
organization was at work fomenting the agitation. That
was the “Colonel’s” work, his emissaries were acting according
to plan. He took no part in these things himself,
I had always heard, as he limited himself to directing and
organizing. The brain-work—not the dangerous labour—for
him. But still it well might be that he himself was
on the spot, directing affairs from an apparently impeccable
position.

That, then, was the meaning of Colonel Race’s presence
on the Kilmorden Castle. He was out after the arch-criminal.
Everything fitted in with that assumption.
He was some one high up in the Secret Service whose
business it was to lay the “Colonel” by the heels.

I nodded to myself—things were becoming very clear
to me. What of my part in the affair? Where did I
come in? Was it only diamonds they were after? I
shook my head. Great as the value of the diamonds
might be, they hardly accounted for the desperate attempts
which had been made to get me out of the way.
No, I stood for more than that. In some way, unknown
to myself, I was a menace, a danger! Some knowledge
that I had, or that they thought I had, made them anxious
to remove me at all costs—and that knowledge was
bound up somehow with the diamonds. There was one
person, I felt sure, who could enlighten me—if he would!
The Man in the Brown Suit—Harry Rayburn. He
knew the other half of the story. But he had vanished
into the darkness, he was a hunted creature flying from
pursuit. In all probability he and I would never meet
again. . . .

I brought myself back with a jerk to the actualities
of the moment. It was no good thinking sentimentally
of Harry Rayburn. He had displayed the greatest antipathy
to me from the first. Or, at least——There I was
again—dreaming! The real problem was what to do—now!

I, priding myself upon my rôle of watcher, had become
the watched. And I was afraid! For the first time I
began to lose my nerve. I was the little bit of grit that
was impeding the smooth working of the great machine—and
I fancied that the machine would have a short way
with little bits of grit. Once Harry Rayburn had saved
me, once I had saved myself—but I felt suddenly that
the odds were heavily against me. My enemies were all
around me in every direction, and they were closing in.
If I continued to play a lone hand I was doomed.

I rallied myself with an effort. After all, what could
they do? I was in a civilized city—with policemen every
few yards. I would be wary in future. They should not
trap me again as they had done in Muizenberg.

As I reached this point in my meditations, the train
arrived at Adderly Street. I got out. Undecided what
to do, I walked slowly up the left-hand side of the street.
I did not trouble to look if my watcher was behind me.
I knew he was. I walked into Cartwright’s and ordered
two coffee ice-cream sodas—to steady my nerves. A man,
I suppose, would have had a stiff peg; but girls derive a
lot of comfort from ice-cream sodas. I applied myself to
the end of the straw with gusto. The cool liquid went
trickling down my throat in the most agreeable manner.
I pushed the first glass aside empty.

I was sitting on one of the little high stools in front of
the counter. Out of the tail of my eye, I saw my tracker
come in and sit down unostentatiously at a little table
near the door. I finished the second coffee soda and demanded
a maple one. I can drink practically an unlimited
amount of ice-cream sodas.

Suddenly the man by the door got up and went out.
That surprised me. If he was going to wait outside,
why not wait outside from the beginning. I slipped down
from my stool and went cautiously to the door. I drew
back quickly into the shadow. The man was talking to
Guy Pagett.

If I had ever had any doubts, that would have settled
it. Pagett had his watch out and was looking at it. They
exchanged a few brief words, and then the secretary
swung on down the street towards the station. Evidently
he had given his orders. But what were they?

Suddenly my heart leapt into my mouth. The man
who had followed me crossed to the middle of the road
and spoke to a policeman. He spoke at some length, gesticulating
towards Cartwright’s and evidently explaining
something. I saw the plan at once. I was to be arrested
on some charge or other—pocket-picking, perhaps. It
would be easy enough for the gang to put through a simple
little matter like that. Of what good to protest my
innocence? They would have seen to every detail. Long
ago they had brought a charge of robbing De Beers
against Harry Rayburn, and he had not been able to disprove
it, though I had little doubt but that he had been
absolutely blameless. What chance had I against such a
“frame up” as the “Colonel” could devise?

I glanced up at the clock almost mechanically, and immediately
another aspect of the case struck me. I saw
the point of Guy Pagett’s looking at his watch. It was
just on eleven, and at eleven the mail train left for
Rhodesia bearing with it the influential friends who might
otherwise come to my rescue. That was the reason of
my immunity up to now. From last night till eleven this
morning I had been safe, but now the net was closing in
upon me.

I hurriedly opened my bag and paid for my drinks,
and as I did so, my heart seemed to stand still, for inside
it was a man’s wallet stuffed with notes! It must have
been deftly introduced into my handbag as I left the
tram.

Promptly I lost my head. I hurried out of Cartwright’s.
The little man with the big nose and the policeman
were just crossing the road. They saw me, and the
little man designated me excitedly to the policeman. I
took to my heels and ran. I judged him to be a slow
policeman. I should get a start. But I had no plan, even
then. I just ran for my life down Adderly Street. People
began to stare. I felt that in another minute some
one would stop me.

An idea flashed into my head.

“The station?” I asked, in a breathless gasp.

“Just down on the right.”

I sped on. It is permissible to run for a train. I
turned into the station, but as I did so I heard footsteps
close behind me. The little man with the big nose was a
champion sprinter. I foresaw that I should be stopped
before I got to the platform I was in search of. I looked
up to the clock—one minute to eleven. I might just do it
if my plan succeeded.

I had entered the station by the main entrance in
Adderly Street. I now darted out again through the
side exit. Directly opposite me was the side entrance to
the post office, the main entrance to which is in Adderly
Street.

As I expected, my pursuer, instead of following me in,
ran down the street to cut me off when I emerged
by the main entrance, or to warn the policeman
to do so.

In an instant I slipped across the street again and back
into the station. I ran like a lunatic. It was just eleven.
The long train was moving as I appeared on the platform.
A porter tried to stop me, but I wriggled myself out of
his grasp and sprang upon the footboard. I mounted
the two steps and opened the gate. I was safe! The
train was gathering way.

We passed a man standing by himself at the end of
the platform. I waved to him.

“Good-bye, Mr. Pagett,” I shouted.

Never have I seen a man more taken aback. He
looked as though he had seen a ghost.

In a minute or two I was having trouble with the conductor.
But I took a lofty tone.

“I am Sir Eustace Pedler’s secretary,” I said haughtily.
“Please take me to his private car.”

Suzanne and Colonel Race were standing on the rear
observation platform. They both uttered an exclamation
of utter surprise at seeing me.

“Hullo, Miss Anne,” cried Colonel Race, “where have
you turned up from? I thought you’d gone to Durban.
What an unexpected person you are.”

Suzanne said nothing, but her eyes asked a hundred
questions.

“I must report myself to my chief,” I said demurely.
“Where is he?”

“He’s in the office—middle compartment—dictating at
an incredible rate to the unfortunate Miss Pettigrew.”

“This enthusiasm for work is something new,” I commented.

“H’m!” said Colonel Race. “His idea is, I think, to
give her sufficient work to chain her to her typewriter in
her own compartment for the rest of the day.”

I laughed. Then, followed by the other two, I sought
out Sir Eustace. He was striding up and down the circumscribed
space, hurling a flood of words at the unfortunate
secretary whom I now saw for the first time. A
tall, square woman in drab clothing, with pince-nez and
an efficient air. I judged that she was finding it difficult
to keep pace with Sir Eustace, for her pencil was flying
along, and she was frowning horribly.

I stepped into the compartment.

“Come aboard, sir,” I said saucily.

Sir Eustace paused dead in the middle of a complicated
sentence on the labour situation and stared at me. Miss
Pettigrew must be a nervous creature, in spite of her efficient
air, for she jumped as though she had been shot.

“God bless my soul!” ejaculated Sir Eustace. “What
about the young man in Durban?”

“I prefer you,” I said softly.

“Darling,” said Sir Eustace. “You can start holding
my hand at once.”

Miss Pettigrew coughed, and Sir Eustace hastily withdrew
his hand.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Let me see, where were we?
Yes. Tylman Roos, in his speech at——What’s the
matter? Why aren’t you taking it down?”

“I think,” said Colonel Race gently, “that Miss Pettigrew
has broken her pencil.”

He took it from her and sharpened it. Sir Eustace
stared, and so did I. There was something in Colonel
Race’s tone that I did not quite understand.

CHAPTER XXII

I am inclined to abandon my Reminiscences. Instead
I shall write a short article entitled “Secretaries I
have had.” As regards secretaries, I seem to have
fallen under a blight. At one minute I have no secretaries,
at another I have too many. At the present minute
I am journeying to Rhodesia with a pack of women.
Race goes off with the two best-looking, of course, and
leaves me with the dud. That is what always happens to
me—and, after all, this is my private car, not Race’s.

Also Anne Beddingfeld is accompanying me to Rhodesia
on the pretext of being my temporary secretary.
But all this afternoon she has been out on the observation
platform with Race exclaiming at the beauty of the Hex
River Pass. It is true that I told her her principal duty
would be to hold my hand. But she isn’t even doing
that. Perhaps she is afraid of Miss Pettigrew. I don’t
blame her if so. There is nothing attractive about Miss
Pettigrew—she is a repellent female with large feet, more
like a man than a woman.

There is something very mysterious about Anne Beddingfeld.
She jumped on board the train at the last
minute, puffing like a steam-engine for all the world as
though she’d been running a race—and yet Pagett told
me that he’d seen her off to Durban last night! Either
Pagett has been drinking again or else the girl must have
an astral body.

And she never explains. Nobody ever explains. Yes,
“Secretaries I have had.” No. 1, a murderer fleeing from
justice. No. 2, a secret drinker who carries on disreputable
intrigues in Italy. No. 3, a beautiful girl who possesses
the useful faculty of being in two places at once.
No. 4, Miss Pettigrew, who, I have no doubt, is really a
particularly dangerous crook in disguise! Probably one
of Pagett’s Italian friends that he has palmed off on me.
I shouldn’t wonder if the world found some day that it
had been grossly deceived by Pagett. On the whole, I
think Rayburn was the best of the bunch. He never
worried me or got in my way. Guy Pagett has had the
impertinence to have the stationery trunk put in here.
None of us can move without falling over it.

I went out on the observation platform just now, expecting
my appearance to be greeted with hails of delight.
Both the women were listening spellbound to one
of Race’s travellers’ tales. I shall label this car—not
“Sir Eustace Pedler and Party,” but “Colonel Race and
Harem.”

Then Mrs. Blair must needs begin taking silly photographs.
Every time we went round a particularly appalling
curve, as we climbed higher and higher, she snapped
at the engine.

“You see the point,” she cried delightedly. “It must
be some curve if you can photograph the front part of
the train from the back, and with the mountain background
it will look awfully dangerous.”

I pointed out to her that no one could possibly tell it
had been taken from the back of the train. She looked
at me pityingly.

“I shall write underneath it: ‘Taken from the train.
Engine going round a curve.’”

“You could write that under any snapshot of a train,”
I said. Women never think of these simple things.

“I’m glad we’ve come up here in daylight,” cried Anne
Beddingfeld. “I shouldn’t have seen this if I’d gone last
night to Durban, should I?”

“No,” said Colonel Race, smiling. “You’d have
waked up to-morrow morning to find yourself in the
Karoo, a hot, dusty desert of stones and rocks.”

“I’m glad I changed my mind,” said Anne, sighing
contentedly, and looking round.

It was rather a wonderful sight. The great mountains
all around, through which we turned and twisted and
laboured ever steadily upwards.

“Is this the best train in the day to Rhodesia?” asked
Anne Beddingfeld.

“In the day?” laughed Race. “Why, my dear Miss
Anne, there are only three trains a week. Mondays,
Wednesdays and Saturdays. Do you realize that you
don’t arrive at the Falls until Saturday next?”

“How well we shall know each other by that time,”
said Mrs. Blair maliciously. “How long are you going
to stay at the Falls, Sir Eustace?”

“That depends,” I said cautiously.

“On what?”

“On how things go at Johannesburg. My original
idea was to stay a couple of days or so at the Falls—which
I’ve never seen, though this is my third visit to
Africa—and then go on to Jo’burg and study the conditions
of things on the Rand. At home, you know, I pose
as being an authority on South African politics. But
from all I hear, Jo’burg will be a particularly unpleasant
place to visit in about a week’s time. I don’t want to
study conditions in the midst of a raging revolution.”

Race smiled in a rather superior manner.

“I think your fears are exaggerated, Sir Eustace.
There will be no great danger in Jo’burg.”

The women immediately looked at him in the “What
a brave hero you are” manner. It annoyed me intensely.
I am every bit as brave as Race—but I lack the figure.
These long, lean, brown men have it all their own way.

“I suppose you’ll be there,” I said coldly.

“Very possibly. We might travel together.”

“I’m not sure that I shan’t stay on at the Falls a bit,”
I answered non-committally. Why is Race so anxious
that I should go to Jo’burg? He’s got his eye on Anne,
I believe. “What are your plans, Miss Anne?”

“That depends,” she replied demurely, copying me.

“I thought you were my secretary,” I objected.

“Oh, but I’ve been cut out. You’ve been holding Miss
Pettigrew’s hand all the afternoon.”

“Whatever I’ve been doing, I can swear I’ve not been
doing that,” I assured her.

Thursday night.

We have just left Kimberley. Race was made to tell
the story of the diamond robbery all over again. Why
are women so excited by anything to do with diamonds?

At last Anne Beddingfeld has shed her veil of mystery.
It seems that she’s a newspaper correspondent. She sent
an immense cable from De Aar this morning. To judge
by the jabbering that went on nearly all night in Mrs.
Blair’s cabin, she must have been reading aloud all her
special articles for years to come.

It seems that all along she’s been on the track of “The
Man in the Brown Suit.” Apparently she didn’t spot
him on the Kilmorden—in fact, she hardly had the
chance, but she’s now very busy cabling home: “How I
journeyed out with the Murderer,” and inventing highly
fictitious stories of “What he said to me,” etc. I know
how these things are done. I do them myself, in my
Reminiscences when Pagett will let me. And of course
one of Nasby’s efficient staff will brighten up the details
still more, so that when it appears in the Daily Budget
Rayburn won’t recognize himself.

The girl’s clever, though. All on her own, apparently,
she’s ferreted out the identity of the woman who was
killed in my house. She was a Russian dancer called
Nadina. I asked Anne Beddingfeld if she was sure of
this. She replied that it was merely a deduction—quite
in the Sherlock Holmes manner. However, I gather that
she had cabled it home to Nasby as a proved fact. Women
have these intuitions—I’ve no doubt that Anne Beddingfeld
is perfectly right in her guess—but to call it a deduction
is absurd.

How she ever got on the staff of the Daily Budget is
more than I can imagine. But she is the kind of young
woman who does these things. Impossible to withstand
her. She is full of coaxing ways that mask an invincible
determination. Look how she has got into my private
car!

I am beginning to have an inkling why. Race said
something about the police suspecting that Rayburn
would make for Rhodesia. He might just have got off
by Monday’s train. They telegraphed all along the line,
I presume, and no one of his description was found, but
that says little. He’s an astute young man and he knows
Africa. He’s probably exquisitely disguised as an old
Kafir woman—and the simple police continue to look
for a handsome young man with a scar, dressed in the
height of European fashion. I never did quite swallow
that scar.

Anyway, Anne Beddingfeld is on his track. She wants
the glory of discovering him for herself and the Daily
Budget. Young women are very cold-blooded nowadays.
I hinted to her that it was an unwomanly action. She
laughed at me. She assured me that did she run him to
earth her fortune was made. Race doesn’t like it, either,
I can see. Perhaps Rayburn is on this train. If so, we
may all be murdered in our beds. I said so to Mrs. Blair—but
she seemed quite to welcome the idea, and remarked
that if I were murdered it would be really a terrific
scoop for Anne! A scoop for Anne indeed!

To-morrow we shall be going through Bechuanaland.
The dust will be atrocious. Also at every station, little
Kafir children come and sell you quaint wooden animals
that they carve themselves. Also mealie bowls and baskets.
I am rather afraid that Mrs. Blair may run amok.
There is a primitive charm about these toys that I feel
will appeal to her.

Friday evening.

As I feared. Mrs. Blair and Anne have bought forty-nine
wooden animals!

CHAPTER XXIII

I thoroughly enjoyed the journey up to Rhodesia.

There was something new and exciting to see every
day. First the wonderful scenery of the Hex river
valley, then the desolate grandeur of the Karoo, and
finally that wonderful straight stretch of line in Bechuanaland,
and the perfectly adorable toys the natives
brought to sell. Suzanne and I were nearly left behind
at each station—if you could call them stations. It
seemed to me that the train just stopped whenever it felt
like it, and no sooner had it done so than a horde of natives
materialized out of the empty landscape, holding
up mealie bowls and sugar canes and fur karosses and
adorable carved wooden animals. Suzanne began at once
to make a collection of the latter. I imitated her example—most
of them cost a “tiki” (threepence) and each
was different. There were giraffes and tigers and snakes
and a melancholy looking eland and absurd little black
warriors. We enjoyed ourselves enormously.

Sir Eustace tried to restrain us—but in vain. I still
think it was a miracle we were not left behind at some
oasis of the line. South African trains don’t hoot or get
excited when they are going to start off again. They just
glide quietly away, and you look up from your bargaining
and run for your life.

Suzanne’s amazement at seeing me climb upon the train
at Cape Town can be imagined. We held an exhaustive
survey of the situation on the first evening out. We talked
half the night.

It had become clear to me that defensive tactics must
be adopted as well as aggressive ones. Travelling with
Sir Eustace Pedler and his party, I was fairly safe. Both
he and Colonel Race were powerful protectors, and I
judged that my enemies would not wish to stir up a
hornet’s nest about my ears. Also, as long as I was near
Sir Eustace, I was more or less in touch with Guy Pagett—and
Guy Pagett was the heart of the mystery. I asked
Suzanne whether in her opinion it was possible that
Pagett himself was the mysterious “Colonel.” His subordinate
position was, of course, against the assumption,
but it had struck me once or twice that, for all his autocratic
ways, Sir Eustace was really very much influenced
by his secretary. He was an easy-going man, and one
whom an adroit secretary might be able to twist round his
little finger. The comparative obscurity of his position
might in reality be useful to him, since he would be anxious
to be well out of the limelight.

Suzanne, however, negatived these ideas very strongly.
She refused to believe that Guy Pagett was the ruling
spirit. The real head—the “Colonel”—was somewhere
in the background and had probably been already in
Africa at the time of our arrival.

I agreed that there was much to be said for her view,
but I was not entirely satisfied. For in each suspicious
instance Pagett had been shown as the directing genius.
It was true that his personality seemed to lack the assurance
and decision that one would expect from a master
criminal—but after all, according to Colonel Race, it was
brain work only that this mysterious leader supplied, and
creative genius is often allied to a weak and timorous
physical constitution.

“There speaks the Professor’s daughter,” interrupted
Suzanne, when I had got to this point in my argument.

“It’s true, all the same. On the other hand, Pagett
may be the Grand Vizier, so to speak, of the All Highest.”
I was silent for a minute or two, and then went on musingly:
“I wish I knew how Sir Eustace made his money!”

“Suspecting him again?”

“Suzanne, I’ve got into that state that I can’t help
suspecting somebody! I don’t really suspect him—but,
after all, he is Pagett’s employer, and he did own the
Mill House.”

“I’ve always heard that he made his money in some
way he isn’t anxious to talk about,” said Suzanne thoughtfully.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean crime—it
might be tin-tacks or hair restorer!”

I agreed ruefully.

“I suppose,” said Suzanne doubtfully, “that we’re not
barking up the wrong tree? Being led completely astray,
I mean, by assuming Pagett’s complicity? Supposing
that, after all, he is a perfectly honest man?”

I considered that for a minute or two, then I shook my
head.

“I can’t believe that.”

“After all, he has his explanations for everything.”

“Y—es, but they’re not very convincing. For instance,
the night he tried to throw me overboard on the Kilmorden,
he says he followed Rayburn up on deck and Rayburn
turned and knocked him down. Now we know
that’s not true.”

“No,” said Suzanne unwillingly. “But we only heard
the story at second-hand from Sir Eustace. If we’d heard
it direct from Pagett himself, it might have been different.
You know how people always get a story a little wrong
when they repeat it.”

I turned the thing over in my mind.

“No,” I said at last, “I don’t see any way out. Pagett’s
guilty. You can’t get away from the fact that he tried
to throw me overboard, and everything else fits in. Why
are you so persistent in this new idea of yours?”

“Because of his face?”

“His face? But——”

“Yes, I know what you’re going to say. It’s a sinister
face. That’s just it. No man with a face like that could
be really sinister. It must be a colossal joke on the part
of Nature.”

I did not believe much in Suzanne’s argument. I know
a lot about Nature in past ages. If she’s got a sense of
humour, she doesn’t show it much. Suzanne is just the
sort of person who would clothe Nature with all her own
attributes.

We passed on to discuss our immediate plans. It was
clear to me that I must have some kind of standing. I
couldn’t go on avoiding explanations for ever. The solution
of all my difficulties lay ready to my hand, though I
didn’t think of it for some time. The Daily Budget! My
silence or my speech could no longer affect Harry Rayburn.
He was marked down as “The Man in the Brown
Suit” through no fault of mine. I could help him best by
seeming to be against him. The “Colonel” and his gang
must have no suspicion that there existed any friendly
feeling between me and the man they had elected to be
the scapegoat of the murder at Marlow. As far as I
knew, the woman killed was still unidentified. I would
cable to Lord Nasby, suggesting that she was no other
than the famous Russian dancer “Nadina” who had been
delighting Paris for so long. It seemed incredible to me
that she had not been identified already—but when I
learnt more of the case long afterwards I saw how natural
it really was.

Nadina had never been to England during her successful
career in Paris. She was unknown to London audiences.
The pictures in the papers of the Marlow victim
were so blurred and unrecognizable that it is small wonder
no one identified them. And, on the other hand,
Nadina had kept her intention of visiting England a profound
secret from every one. The day after the murder
a letter had been received by her manager purporting to
be from the dancer, in which she said that she was returning
to Russia on urgent private affairs and that he
must deal with her broken contract as best he could.

All this, of course, I only learned afterwards. With
Suzanne’s full approval, I sent a long cable from De Aar.
It arrived at a psychological moment (this again, of
course, I learnt afterwards). The Daily Budget was hard
up for a sensation. My guess was verified and proved
to be correct and the Daily Budget had the scoop of its
lifetime. “Victim of the Mill House Murder identified
by our special reporter.” And so on. “Our reporter
makes voyage with the murderer. ‘The Man in the
Brown Suit.’ What he is really like.”

The main facts were, of course, cabled to the South
African papers, but I only read my own lengthy articles
at a much later date! I received approval and full instructions
by cable at Bulawayo. I was on the staff of
the Daily Budget, and I had a private word of congratulation
from Lord Nasby himself. I was definitely accredited
to hunt down the murderer, and I, and only I,
knew that the murderer was not Harry Rayburn! But
let the world think that it was he—best so for the present.

CHAPTER XXIV

We arrived at Bulawayo early on Saturday morning.
I was disappointed in the place. It was
very hot, and I hated the hotel. Also Sir Eustace
was what I can only describe as thoroughly sulky.
I think it was all our wooden animals that annoyed him—especially
the big giraffe. It was a colossal giraffe with
an impossible neck, a mild eye and a dejected tail. It had
character. It had charm. A controversy was already
arising as to whom it belonged—me or Suzanne. We had
each contributed a tiki to its purchase. Suzanne advanced
the claims of seniority and the married state, I
stuck to the position that I had been the first to behold
its beauty.

In the meantime, I must admit, it occupied a good deal
of this three-dimensional space of ours. To carry forty-nine
wooden animals, all of awkward shape, and all of
extremely brittle wood, is somewhat of a problem. Two
porters were laden with a bunch of animals each—and
one promptly dropped a ravishing group of ostriches and
broke their heads off. Warned by this, Suzanne and I
carried all we could, Colonel Race helped, and I pressed
the big giraffe into Sir Eustace’s arms. Even the correct
Miss Pettigrew did not escape, a large hippopotamus and
two black warriors fell to her share. I had a feeling Miss
Pettigrew didn’t like me. Perhaps she fancied I was a
bold hussy. Anyway, she avoided me as much as she
could. And the funny thing was, her face seemed vaguely
familiar to me, though I couldn’t quite place it.

We reposed ourselves most of the morning, and in the
afternoon we drove out to the Matoppos to see Rhodes’s
grave. That is to say, we were to have done so, but at
the last moment Sir Eustace backed out. He was very
nearly in as bad a temper as the morning we arrived at
Cape Town—when he bounced the peaches on the floor
and they squashed! Evidently arriving early in the morning
at places is bad for his temperament. He cursed the
porters, he cursed the waiters at breakfast, he cursed the
whole hotel management, he would doubtless have liked
to curse Miss Pettigrew who hovered around with her
pencil and pad, but I don’t think even Sir Eustace would
have dared to curse Miss Pettigrew. She’s just like the
efficient secretary in a book. I only rescued our dear
giraffe just in time. I feel Sir Eustace would have liked
to dash him to the ground.

To return to our expedition, after Sir Eustace had
backed out, Miss Pettigrew said she would remain at
home in case he might want her. And at the very last
minute Suzanne sent down a message to say she had a
headache. So Colonel Race and I drove off alone.

He is a strange man. One doesn’t notice it so much in
a crowd. But, when one is alone with him, the sense of
his personality seems really almost overpowering. He
becomes more taciturn, and yet his silence seems to say
more than speech might do.

It was so that day that we drove to the Matoppos
through the soft yellow brown scrub. Everything seemed
strangely silent—except our car which I should think was
the first Ford ever made by man! The upholstery of it
was torn to ribbons and, though I know nothing about
engines, even I could guess that all was not as it should
be in its interior.

By and by the character of the country changed. Great
boulders appeared, piled up into fantastic shapes. I felt
suddenly that I had got into a primitive era. Just for a
moment Neanderthal men seemed quite as real to me as
they had to Papa. I turned to Colonel Race.

“There must have been giants once,” I said dreamily.
“And their children were just like children are to-day—they
played with handfuls of pebbles, piling them up and
knocking them down, and the more cleverly they balanced
them, the better pleased they were. If I were to give a
name to this place I should call it ‘The Country of Giant
Children.’”

“Perhaps you’re nearer the mark than you know,” said
Colonel Race gravely. “Simple, primitive, big—that is
Africa.”

I nodded appreciatively.

“You love it, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes. But to live in it long—well, it makes one what
you would call cruel. One comes to hold life and death
very lightly.”

“Yes,” I said, thinking of Harry Rayburn. He had
been like that too. “But not cruel to weak things?”

“Opinions differ as to what are and are not ‘weak
things,’ Miss Anne.”

There was a note of seriousness in his voice which almost
startled me. I felt that I knew very little really of
this man at my side.

“I meant children and dogs, I think.”

“I can truthfully say I’ve never been cruel to
children or dogs. So you don’t class women as ‘weak
things’?”

I considered.

“No, I don’t think I do—though they are, I suppose.
That is, they are nowadays. But Papa always said that
in the beginning men and women roamed the world together,
equal in strength—like lions and tigers——”

“And giraffes?” interpolated Colonel Race slyly.

I laughed. Every one makes fun of that giraffe.

“And giraffes. They were nomadic, you see. It wasn’t
till they settled down in communities, and women did one
kind of thing and men another that women got weak.
And of course, underneath, one is still the same—one feels
the same, I mean, and that is why women worship physical
strength in men—it’s what they once had and have
lost.”

“Almost ancestor worship, in fact?”

“Something of the kind.”

“And you really think that’s true? That women worship
strength, I mean?”

“I think it’s quite true—if one’s honest. You think
you admire moral qualities, but when you fall in love,
you revert to the primitive where the physical is all that
counts. But I don’t think that’s the end—if you lived
in primitive conditions it would be all right, but you don’t—and
so, in the end, the other thing wins after all. It’s
the things that are apparently conquered that always do
win, isn’t it? They win in the only way that counts.
Like what the Bible says about losing your soul and finding
it.”

“In the end,” said Colonel Race thoughtfully, “you
fall in love—and you fall out of it, is that what you
mean?”

“Not exactly, but you can put it that way if you like.”

“But I don’t think you’ve ever fallen out of love, Miss
Anne?”

“No, I haven’t,” I admitted frankly.

“Or fallen in love, either?”

I did not answer.

The car drew up at our destination and brought the
conversation to a close. We got out and began the slow
ascent to the World’s View. Not for the first time, I felt
a slight discomfort in Colonel Race’s company. He veiled
his thoughts so well behind those impenetrable black eyes.

He frightened me a little. He had always frightened me.
I never knew where I stood with him.

We climbed in silence till we reached the spot where
Rhodes lies guarded by giant boulders. A strange eerie
place, far from the haunts of men, that sings a ceaseless
pæan of rugged beauty.

We sat there for some time in silence. Then descended
once more, but diverging slightly from the path. Sometimes
it was a rough scramble and once we came to a
sharp slope or rock that was almost sheer.

Colonel Race went first, then turned to help me.

“Better lift you,” he said suddenly, and swung me off
my feet with a quick gesture.

I felt the strength of him as he set me down and released
his clasp. A man of iron, with muscles like taut
steel. And again, I felt afraid, especially as he did not
move aside, but stood directly in front of me, staring into
my face.

“What are you really doing here, Anne Beddingfeld?”
he said abruptly.

“I’m a gipsy seeing the world.”

“Yes, that’s true enough. The newspaper correspondent
is only a pretext. You’ve not the soul of the journalist.
You’re out for your own hand—snatching at life.
But that’s not all.”

What was he going to make me tell him? I was afraid—afraid.
I looked him full in the face. My eyes can’t
keep secrets like his, but they can carry the war into the
enemy’s country.

“What are you really doing here, Colonel Race?” I
asked deliberately.

For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
He was clearly taken aback, though. At last he spoke,
and his words seemed to afford him a grim amusement.

“Pursuing ambition,” he said. “Just that—pursuing
ambition. You will remember, Miss Beddingfeld, that
‘by that sin fell the angels,’ etc.”

“They say,” I said slowly, “that you are really connected
with the Government—that you are in the Secret
Service. Is that true?”

Was it my fancy, or did he hesitate for a fraction of a
second before he answered?

“I can assure you, Miss Beddingfeld, that I am out
here strictly as a private individual travelling for my own
pleasure.”

Thinking the answer over later, it struck me as slightly
ambiguous. Perhaps he meant it to be so.

We rejoined the car in silence. Half-way back to Bulawayo
we stopped for tea at a somewhat primitive structure
at the side of the road. The proprietor was digging
in the garden and seemed annoyed at being disturbed.
But he graciously promised to see what he could do.
After an interminable wait he brought us some stale
cakes and some lukewarm tea. Then he disappeared to
his garden again.

No sooner had he departed than we were surrounded
by cats. Six of them all miaowing piteously at once. The
racket was deafening. I offered them some pieces of
cake. They devoured them ravenously. I poured all
the milk there was into a saucer and they fought each
other to get it.

“Oh,” I cried indignantly, “they’re starved! It’s
wicked. Please, please, order some more milk and another
plate of cake.”

Colonel Race departed silently to do my bidding. The
cats had begun miaowing again. He returned with a big
jug of milk and the cats finished it all.

I got up with determination on my face.

“I’m going to take those cats home with us—I shan’t
leave them here.”

“My dear child, don’t be absurd. You can’t carry six
cats as well as fifty wooden animals round with you.”

“Never mind the wooden animals. These cats are alive.
I shall take them back with me.”

“You will do nothing of the kind.” I looked at him
resentfully, but he went on: “You think me cruel—but
one can’t go through life sentimentalizing over these
things. It’s no good standing out—I shan’t allow you to
take them. It’s a primitive country, you know, and I’m
stronger than you.”

I always know when I am beaten. I went down to the
car with tears in my eyes.

“They’re probably short of food just to-day,” he explained
consolingly. “That man’s wife has gone into
Bulawayo for stores. So it will be all right. And anyway,
you know, the world’s full of starving cats.”

“Don’t—don’t,” I said fiercely.

“I’m teaching you to realize life as it is. I’m teaching
you to be hard and ruthless—like I am. That’s the secret
of strength—and the secret of success.”

“I’d sooner be dead than hard,” I said passionately.

We got into the car and started off. I pulled myself
together again slowly. Suddenly, to my intense astonishment,
he took my hand in his.

“Anne,” he said gently, “I want you. Will you marry
me?”

I was utterly taken aback.

“Oh, no,” I stammered. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t care for you in that way. I’ve never thought
of you like that.”

“I see. Is that the only reason?”

I had to be honest. I owed it him.

“No,” I said, “it is not. You see—I—care for some
one else.”

“I see,” he said again. “And was that true at the beginning—when
I first saw you—on the Kilmorden?”

“No,” I whispered. “It was—since then.”

“I see,” he said for the third time, but this time there
was a purposeful ring in his voice that made me turn
and look at him. His face was grimmer than I had ever
seen it.

“What—what do you mean?” I faltered.

He looked at me, inscrutable, dominating.

“Only—that I know now what I have to do.”

His words sent a shiver through me. There was a determination
behind them that I did not understand—and
it frightened me.

We neither of us said any more until we got back to
the hotel. I went straight up to Suzanne. She was lying
on her bed reading, and did not look in the least as though
she had a headache.

“Here reposes the perfect gooseberry,” she remarked.
“Alias the tactful chaperone. Why, Anne dear, what’s
the matter?”

For I had burst into a flood of tears.

I told her about the cats—I felt it wasn’t fair to tell
her about Colonel Race. But Suzanne is very sharp. I
think she saw that there was something more behind.

“You haven’t caught a chill, have you, Anne? Sounds
absurd even to suggest such things in this heat, but you
keep on shivering.”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Nerves—or some one walking
over my grave. I keep feeling something dreadful’s going
to happen.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Suzanne, with decision. “Let’s
talk of something interesting. Anne, about those diamonds——”

“What about them?”

“I’m not sure they’re safe with me. It was all right
before, no one could think they’d be amongst my things.
But now that every one knows we’re such friends, you
and I, I’ll be under suspicion too.”

“Nobody knows they’re in a roll of films, though,” I
argued. “It’s a splendid hiding-place and I really don’t
think we could better it.”

She agreed doubtfully, but said we would discuss it
again when we got to the Falls.

Our train went at nine o’clock. Sir Eustace’s temper
was still far from good, and Miss Pettigrew looked subdued.
Colonel Race was completely himself. I felt that
I had dreamed the whole conversation on the way back.

I slept heavily that night on my hard bunk, struggling
with ill-defined, menacing dreams. I awoke with a headache
and went out on the observation platform of the
car. It was fresh and lovely, and everywhere, as far as
one could see, were the undulating wooded hills. I loved
it—loved it more than any place I had ever seen. I
wished then that I could have a little hut somewhere in
the heart of the scrub and live there always—always. . . .

Just before half-past two, Colonel Race called me out
from the “office” and pointed to a bouquet-shaped white
mist that hovered over one portion of the bush.

“The spray from the Falls,” he said. “We are nearly
there.”

I was still wrapped in that strange dream feeling of
exaltation that had succeeded my troubled night. Very
strongly implanted in me was the feeling that I had come
home. . . . Home! And yet I had never been here before—or
had I in dreams?

We walked from the train to the hotel, a big white
building closely wired against mosquitoes. There were
no roads, no houses. We went out on the stoep and I
uttered a gasp. There, half a mile away, facing us, were
the Falls. I’ve never seen anything so grand and beautiful—I
never shall.

“Anne, you’re fey,” said Suzanne, as we sat down to
lunch. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”

She stared at me curiously.

“Am I?” I laughed, but I felt that my laugh was unnatural.
“It’s just that I love it all.”

“It’s more than that.”

A little frown creased her brow—one of apprehension.

Yes, I was happy, but beyond that I had the curious
feeling that I was waiting for something—something that
would happen soon. I was excited—restless.

After tea we strolled out, got on the trolley and were
pushed by smiling blacks down the little tracks of rails to
the bridge.

It was a marvellous sight, the great chasm and the
rushing waters below, and the veil of mist and spray in
front of us that parted every now and then for one brief
minute to show the cataract of water and then closed up
again in its impenetrable mystery. That, to my mind,
has always been the fascination of the Falls—their elusive
quality. You always think you’re going to see—and
you never do.

We crossed the bridge and walked slowly on by the
path that was marked out with white stone on either side
and led round the brink of the gorge. Finally we arrived
in a big clearing where on the left a path led downwards
towards the chasm.

“The palm gully,” explained Colonel Race. “Shall we
go down? Or shall we leave it until to-morrow? It will
take some time, and it’s a good climb up again.”

“We’ll leave it until to-morrow,” said Sir Eustace with
decision. He isn’t at all fond of strenuous physical exercise,
I have noticed.

He led the way back. As we went, we passed a fine
native stalking along. Behind him came a woman who
seemed to have the entire household belongings piled upon
her head! The collection included a frying pan!

“I never have my camera when I want it,” groaned
Suzanne.

“That’s an opportunity that will occur often enough,
Mrs. Blair,” said Colonel Race. “So don’t lament.”

We arrived back on the bridge.

“Shall we go into the rainbow forest?” he continued.
“Or are you afraid of getting wet?”

Suzanne and I accompanied him. Sir Eustace went
back to the hotel. I was rather disappointed in the rainbow
forest. There weren’t nearly enough rainbows, and
we got soaked to the skin, but every now and then we got
a glimpse of the Falls opposite and realized how enormously
wide they are. Oh, dear, dear Falls, how I love
and worship you and always shall!

We got back to the hotel just in time to change for
dinner. Sir Eustace seems to have taken a positive
antipathy to Colonel Race. Suzanne and I rallied him
gently, but didn’t get much satisfaction.

After dinner, he retired to his sitting-room, dragging
Miss Pettigrew with him. Suzanne and I talked for a
while with Colonel Race, and then she declared, with an
immense yawn, that she was going to bed. I didn’t want
to be left alone with him, so I got up too and went to my
room.

But I was far too excited to go to sleep. I did not even
undress. I lay back in a chair and gave myself up to
dreaming. And all the time I was conscious of something
coming nearer and nearer. . . .

There was a knock at the door and I started. I got up
and went to it. A little black boy held out a note. It
was addressed to me in a handwriting I did not know. I
took it and came back into the room. I stood there holding
it. At last I opened it. It was very short:

“I must see you. I dare not come to the hotel. Will
you come to the clearing by the palm gully? In memory
of Cabin 17 please come. The man you knew as Harry
Rayburn.”

My heart beat to suffocation. He was here then! Oh,
I had known it—I had known it all along! I had felt
him near me. All unwittingly I had come to his place
of retreat.

I wound a scarf round my head and stole to the door.
I must be careful. He was hunted down. No one must
see me meet him. I stole along to Suzanne’s room. She
was fast asleep. I could hear her breathing evenly.

Sir Eustace? I paused outside the door of his sitting-room.
Yes, he was dictating to Miss Pettigrew, I could
hear her monotonous voice repeating. “I therefore venture
to suggest, that in tackling this problem of coloured
labour——” She paused for him to continue, and I
heard him grunt something angrily.

I stole on again. Colonel Race’s room was empty. I
did not see him in the lounge. And he was the man I
feared most! Still, I could waste no more time. I slipped
quickly out of the hotel and took the path to the bridge.

I crossed it and stood there waiting in the shadow. If
any one had followed me, I should see them crossing the
bridge. But the minutes passed, and no one came. I
had not been followed. I turned and took the path to the
clearing. I took six paces or so and then stopped. Something
had rustled behind me. It could not be any one who
had followed me from the hotel. It was some one who
was already here, waiting.

And immediately, without rhyme or reason, but with
the sureness of instinct, I knew that it was I myself who
was threatened. It was the same feeling as I had had on
the Kilmorden that night—a sure instinct warning me of
danger.

I looked sharply over my shoulder. Silence. I moved
on a pace or two. Again I heard that rustle. Still walking,
I looked over my shoulder again. A man’s figure
came out of the shadow. He saw that I saw him, and
jumped forward, hard on my track.

It was too dark to recognize anybody. All I could see
was that he was tall, and a European, not a native. I
took to my heels and ran. I heard him pounding behind.
I ran quicker, keeping my eyes fixed on the white stones
that showed me where to step, for there was no moon
that night.

And suddenly my foot felt nothingness. I heard the
man behind me laugh, an evil, sinister laugh. It rang in
my ears, as I fell headlong—down—down—down to
destruction far beneath.

CHAPTER XXV

I came to myself slowly and painfully. I was conscious
of an aching head and a shooting pain down
my left arm when I tried to move, and everything
seemed dream-like and unreal. Nightmare visions floated
before me. I felt myself falling—falling again. Once
Harry Rayburn’s face seemed to come to me out of the
mist. Almost I imagined it real. Then it floated away
again, mocking me. Once, I remember, some one put a
cup to my lips and I drank. A black face grinned into
mine—a devil’s face, I thought it, and screamed out.
Then dreams again—long troubled dreams in which I
vainly sought Harry Rayburn to warn him—warn him—what
of? I did not know myself. But there was some
danger—some great danger—and I alone could save him.
Then darkness again, merciful darkness, and real sleep.

I woke at last myself again. The long nightmare was
over. I remembered perfectly everything that had happened,
my hurried flight from the hotel to meet Harry,
the man in the shadows and that last terrible moment of
falling. . . .

By some miracle or other I had not been killed. I was
bruised and aching and very weak, but I was alive. But
where was I? Moving my head with difficulty I looked
round me. I was in a small room with rough wooden
walls. On them were hung skins of animals and various
tusks of ivory. I was lying on a kind of rough couch,
also covered with skins, and my left arm was bandaged
up and felt stiff and uncomfortable. At first I thought I
was alone, and then I saw a man’s figure sitting between
me and the light, his head turned toward the window.
He was so still that he might have been carved out of
wood. Something in the close-cropped black head was
familiar to me, but I did not dare to let my imagination
run astray. Suddenly he turned, and I caught my breath.
It was Harry Rayburn. Harry Rayburn in the flesh.

He rose and came over to me.

“Feeling better?” he said a trifle awkwardly.

I could not answer. The tears were running down my
face. I was weak still, but I held his hand in both of
mine. If only I could die like this, whilst he stood there
looking down on me with that new look in his eyes.

“Don’t cry, Anne. Please don’t cry. You’re safe now.
No one shall hurt you.”

He went and fetched a cup and brought it to me.

“Drink some of this milk.”

I drank obediently. He went on talking in a low coaxing
tone such as he might have used to a child.

“Don’t ask any more questions now. Go to sleep again.
You’ll be stronger by and by. I’ll go away if you like.”

“No,” I said urgently. “No, no.

“Then I’ll stay.”

He brought a small stool over beside me and sat there.
He laid his hand over mine, and, soothed and comforted,
I dropped off to sleep once more.

It must have been evening then, but when I woke again
the sun was high in the heavens. I was alone in the hut,
but as I stirred an old native woman came running in.
She was hideous as sin, but she grinned at me encouragingly.
She brought me water in a basin and helped me
wash my face and hands. Then she brought me a large
bowl of soup, and I finished it every drop! I asked her
several questions, but she only grinned and nodded and
chattered away in a guttural language, so I gathered she
knew no English.

Suddenly she stood up and drew back respectfully as
Harry Rayburn entered. He gave her a nod of dismissal
and she went out leaving us alone. He smiled at me.

“Really better to-day!”

“Yes, indeed, but very bewildered still. Where am
I?”

“You’re on a small island on the Zambesi about four
miles up from the Falls.”

“Do—do my friends know I’m here?”

He shook his head.

“I must send word to them.”

“That is as you like of course, but if I were you I
should wait until you are a little stronger.”

“Why?”

He did not answer immediately, so I went on.

“How long have I been here?”

His answer amazed me.

“Nearly a month.”

“Oh!” I cried. “I must send word to Suzanne. She’ll
be terribly anxious.”

“Who is Suzanne?”

“Mrs. Blair. I was with her and Sir Eustace and Colonel
Race at the hotel—but you knew that surely?”

He shook his head.

“I know nothing, except that I found you, caught in
the fork of a tree, unconscious and with a badly wrenched
arm.”

“Where was the tree?”

“Overhanging the ravine. But for your clothes catching
on the branches, you would infallibly have been
dashed to pieces.”

I shuddered. Then a thought struck me.

“You say you didn’t know I was there. What about
the note then?”

“What note?”

“The note you sent me, asking me to meet you in the
clearing.”

He stared at me.

“I sent no note.”

I felt myself flushing up to the roots of my hair. Fortunately
he did not seem to notice.

“How did you come to be on the spot in such a marvellous
manner?” I asked in as nonchalant a manner as I
could assume. “And what are you doing in this part of
the world, anyway?”

“I live here,” he said simply.

“On this island?”

“Yes, I came here after the War. Sometimes I take
parties from the hotel out in my boat, but it costs me very
little to live, and mostly I do as I please.”

“You live here all alone?”

“I am not pining for society, I assure you,” he replied
coldly.

“I am sorry to have inflicted mine upon you,” I retorted,
“but I seem to have had very little to say in the
matter.”

To my surprise his eyes twinkled a little.

“None whatever. I slung you across my shoulders like
a sack of coal and carried you to my boat. Quite like a
primitive man of the Stone Age.”

“But for a different reason,” I put in.

He flushed this time, a deep burning blush. The tan of
his face was suffused.

“But you haven’t told me how you came to be wandering
about so conveniently for me?” I said hastily, to cover
his confusion.

“I couldn’t sleep. I was restless—disturbed—had the
feeling something was going to happen. In the end I took
the boat and came ashore and tramped down towards the
Falls. I was just at the head of the palm gully when I
heard you scream.”

“Why didn’t you get help from the hotel instead of
carting me all the way here?” I asked.

He flushed again.

“I suppose it seems an unpardonable liberty to you—but
I don’t think that even now you realize your danger!
You think I should have informed your friends? Pretty
friends, who allowed you to be decoyed out to death. No,
I swore to myself that I’d take better care of you than
any one else could. Not a soul comes to this island. I
got old Batani, whom I cured of a fever once, to come and
look after you. She’s loyal. She’ll never say a word. I
could keep you here for months and no one would ever
know.”

I could keep you here for months and no one would
ever know! How some words please one!

“You did quite right,” I said quietly. “And I shall
not send word to any one. A day or so more anxiety
doesn’t make much difference. It’s not as though they
were my own people. They’re only acquaintances really—even
Suzanne. And whoever wrote that note must
have known—a great deal. It was not the work of an
outsider.”

I managed to mention the note this time without blushing
at all.

“If you would be guided by me——” he said, hesitating.

“I don’t expect I shall be,” I answered candidly. “But
there’s no harm in hearing.”

“Do you always do what you like, Miss Beddingfeld?”

“Usually,” I replied cautiously. To any one else I
would have said “Always.”

“I pity your husband,” he said unexpectedly.

“You needn’t,” I retorted. “I shouldn’t dream of
marrying any one unless I was madly in love with them.
And of course there is really nothing a woman enjoys so
much as doing all the things she doesn’t like for the sake
of some one she does like. And the more self-willed she
is, the more she likes it.”

“I’m afraid I disagree with you. The boot is on the
other leg as a rule.” He spoke with a slight sneer.

“Exactly,” I cried eagerly. “And that’s why there
are so many unhappy marriages. It’s all the fault of the
men. Either they give way to their women—and then
the women despise them, or else they are utterly selfish,
insist on their own way and never say ‘thank you.’ Successful
husbands make their wives do just what they
want, and then make a frightful fuss of them for doing
it. Women like to be mastered, but they hate not to have
their sacrifices appreciated. On the other hand, men
don’t really appreciate women who are nice to them all
the time. When I am married, I shall be a devil most
of the time, but every now and then, when my husband
least expects it, I shall show him what a perfect angel I
can be!”

Harry laughed outright.

“What a cat and dog life you will lead.”

“Lovers always fight,” I assured him. “Because they
don’t understand each other. And by the time they do
understand each other they aren’t in love any more.”

“Does the reverse hold true? Are people who fight
each other always lovers?”

“I—I don’t know,” I said, momentarily confused.

He turned away to the fireplace.

“Like some more soup?” he asked in a casual tone.

“Yes, please. I’m so hungry that I could eat a hippopotamus.”

“That’s good.”

He busied himself with the fire; I watched.

“When I can get off the couch, I’ll cook for you,” I
promised.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about cooking.”

“I can warm up things out of tins as well as you can,”
I retorted, pointing to a row of tins on the mantelpiece.

“Touché,” he said, and laughed.

His whole face changed when he laughed. It became
boyish, happy—a different personality.

I enjoyed my soup. As I ate it I reminded him that
he had not, after all, tendered me his advice.

“Ah, yes, what I was going to say was this. If I were
you I would stay quietly perdu here until you are quite
strong again. Your enemies will believe you dead. They
will hardly be surprised at not finding the body. It would
have been dashed to pieces on the rocks and carried down
with the torrent.”

I shivered.

“Once you are completely restored to health, you can
journey quietly on to Beira and get a boat to take you
back to England.”

“That would be very tame,” I objected scornfully.

“There speaks a foolish schoolgirl.”

“I’m not a foolish schoolgirl,” I cried indignantly.
“I’m a woman.”

He looked at me with an expression I could not fathom
as I sat up flushed and excited.

“God help me, so you are,” he muttered, and went
abruptly out.

My recovery was rapid. The two injuries I had sustained
were a knock on the head and a badly wrenched
arm. The latter was the most serious and, to begin with,
my rescuer had believed it to be actually broken. A careful
examination, however, convinced him that it was not
so, and although it was very painful I was recovering the
use of it quite quickly.

It was a strange time. We were cut off from the world,
alone together as Adam and Eve might have been—but
with what a difference! Old Batani hovered about
counting no more than a dog might have done. I insisted
on doing the cooking, or as much of it as I could
manage with one arm. Harry was out a good part of the
time, but we spent long hours together lying out in the
shade of the palms, talking and quarrelling—discussing
everything under high heaven, quarrelling and making it
up again. We bickered a good deal, but there grew up
between us a real and lasting comradeship such as I could
never have believed possible. That—and something else.

The time was drawing near, I knew it, when I should
be well enough to leave and I realized it with a heavy
heart. Was he going to let me go? Without a word?
Without a sign? He had fits of silence, long moody intervals,
moments when he would spring up and tramp off
by himself. One evening the crisis came. We had
finished our simple meal and were sitting in the doorway
of the hut. The sun was sinking.

Hairpins were necessities of life with which Harry had
not been able to provide me, and my hair, straight and
black, hung to my knees. I sat, my chin on my hands,
lost in meditation. I felt rather than saw Harry looking
at me.

“You look like a witch, Anne,” he said at last, and
there was something in his voice that had never been there
before.

He reached out his hand and just touched my hair. I
shivered. Suddenly he sprang up with an oath.

“You must leave here to-morrow, do you hear?” he
cried. “I—I can’t bear any more. I’m only a man after
all. You must go, Anne. You must. You’re not a fool.
You know yourself that this can’t go on.”

“I suppose not,” I said slowly. “But—it’s been happy,
hasn’t it?”

“Happy? It’s been hell!”

“As bad as that!”

“What do you torment me for? Why are you mocking
at me? Why do you say that—laughing into your
hair?”

“I wasn’t laughing. And I’m not mocking. If you
want me to go, I’ll go. But if you want me to stay—I’ll
stay.”

“Not that!” he cried vehemently. “Not that. Don’t
tempt me, Anne. Do you realize what I am? A criminal
twice over. A man hunted down. They know me here
as Harry Parker—they think I’ve been away on a trek up
country, but any day they may put two and two together—and
then the blow will fall. You’re so young, Anne,
and so beautiful—with the kind of beauty that sends men
mad. All the world’s before you—love, life, everything.
Mine’s behind me—scorched, spoiled, with a taste of bitter
ashes.”

“If you don’t want me——”

“You know I want you. You know that I’d give my
soul to pick you up in my arms and keep you here, hidden
away from the world, for ever and ever. And you’re
tempting me, Anne. You, with your long witch’s hair,
and your eyes that are golden and brown and green and
never stop laughing even when your mouth is grave. But
I’ll save you from yourself and from me. You shall go
to-night. You shall go to Beira——”

“I’m not going to Beira,” I interrupted.

“You are. You shall go to Beira if I have to take
you there myself and throw you on to the boat. What
do you think I’m made of? Do you think I’ll wake up
night after night, fearing they’ve got you? One can’t go
on counting on miracles happening. You must go back
to England, Anne—and—and marry and be happy.”

“With a steady man who’ll give me a good home!”

“Better that than—utter disaster.”

“And what of you?”

His face grew grim and set.

“I’ve got my work ready to hand. Don’t ask what it
is. You can guess, I dare say. But I’ll tell you this—I’ll
clear my name, or die in the attempt, and I’ll choke
the life out of the damned scoundrel who did his best
to murder you the other night.”

“We must be fair,” I said. “He didn’t actually push
me over.”

“He’d no need to. His plan was cleverer than that. I
went up to the path afterwards. Everything looked all
right, but by the marks on the ground I saw that the stones
which outline the path had been taken up and put down
again in a slightly different place. There are tall bushes
growing just over the edge. He’d balanced the outside
stones on them, so that you’d think you were still on the
path when in reality you were stepping into nothingness.
God help him if I lay my hands upon him!”

He paused a minute and then said in a totally different
tone:

“We’ve never spoken of these things, Anne, have we?
But the time’s come. I want you to hear the whole story—from
the beginning.”

“If it hurts you to go over the past, don’t tell me,” I
said in a low voice.

“But I want you to know. I never thought I should
speak of that part of my life to any one. Funny, isn’t it,
the tricks Fate plays?”

He was silent for a minute or two. The sun had set,
and the velvety darkness of the African night was enveloping
us like a mantle.

“Some of it I know,” I said gently.

“What do you know?”

“I know that your real name is Harry Lucas.”

Still he hesitated—not looking at me, but staring
straight out in front of him. I had no clue as to what
was passing in his mind, but at last he jerked his head
forward as though acquiescing in some unspoken decision
of his own and began his story.

CHAPTER XXVI

“You are right. My real name is Harry Lucas.
My father was a retired soldier who came out
to farm in Rhodesia. He died when I was in
my second year at Cambridge.”

“Were you fond of him?” I asked suddenly.

“I—don’t know.”

Then he flushed and went on with sudden vehemence:

“Why do I say that? I did love my father. We said
bitter things to each other the last time I saw him, and
we had many rows over my wildness and my debts, but
I cared for the old man. I know how much now—when
it’s too late,” he continued more quietly. “It was at
Cambridge that I met the other fellow——”

“Young Eardsley?”

“Yes—young Eardsley. His father, as you know, was
one of South Africa’s most prominent men. We drifted
together at once, my friend and I. We had our love of
South Africa in common and we both had a taste for the
untrodden places of the world. After he left Cambridge,
Eardsley had a final quarrel with his father. The old
man had paid his debts twice, he refused to do so again.
There was a bitter scene between them. Sir Laurence
declared himself at the end of his patience—he would do
no more for his son. He must stand on his own legs for a
while. The result was, as you know, that those two young
men went off to South America together, prospecting
for diamonds. I’m not going into that now, but we had
a wonderful time out there. Hardships in plenty, you
understand, but it was a good life—a hand-to-mouth
scramble for existence far from the beaten track—and,
my God! that’s the place to know a friend. There was
a bond forged between us two out there that only death
could have broken. Well, as Colonel Race told you, our
efforts were crowned with success. We found a second
Kimberley in the heart of the British Guiana jungles. I
can’t tell you our elation. It wasn’t so much the actual
value in money of the find—you see, Eardsley was
used to money, and he knew that when his father died
he would be a millionaire, and Lucas had always been
poor and was used to it. No, it was the sheer delight of
discovery.”

He paused, and then added, almost apologetically:

“You don’t mind my telling it this way, do you? As
though I wasn’t in it at all. It seems like that now when
I look back and see those two boys. I almost forget that
one of them was—Harry Rayburn.”

“Tell it any way you like,” I said, and he went on:

“We came to Kimberley—very cock-a-hoop over our
find. We brought a magnificent selection of diamonds
with us to submit to the experts. And then—in the hotel
at Kimberley—we met her——”

I stiffened a little, and the hand that rested on the doorpost
clenched itself involuntarily.

“Anita Grünberg—that was her name. She was an
actress. Quite young and very beautiful. She was South
African born, but her mother was a Hungarian, I believe.
There was some sort of mystery about her, and that, of
course, heightened her attraction for two boys home from
the wilds. She must have had an easy task. We both
fell for her right away, and we both took it hard. It was
the first shadow that had ever come between us—but
even then it didn’t weaken our friendship. Each of us,
I honestly believe, was willing to stand aside for the other
to go in and win. But that wasn’t her game. Sometimes,
afterwards, I wondered why it hadn’t been, for Sir Laurence
Eardsley’s only son was quite a parti. But the
truth of it was that she was married—to a sorter in De
Beers’—though nobody knew of it. She pretended enormous
interests in our discovery, and we told her all about
it and even showed her the diamonds. Delilah—that’s
what she should have been called—and she played her
part well!

“The De Beers robbery was discovered, and like a
thunderclap the police came down upon us. They seized
our diamonds. We only laughed at first—the whole thing
was so absurd. And then the diamonds were produced
in court—and without question they were the stones
stolen from De Beers’. Anita Grünberg had disappeared.
She had effected the substitution neatly enough, and our
story that these were not the stones originally in our
possession was laughed to scorn.

“Sir Laurence Eardsley had enormous influence. He
succeeded in getting the case dismissed—but it left two
young men ruined and disgraced to face the world with
the stigma of thief attached to their names, and it pretty
well broke the old fellow’s heart. He had one bitter interview
with his son in which he heaped upon him every reproach
imaginable. He had done what he could to save
the family name, but from that day on his son was his
son no longer. He cast him off utterly. And the boy,
like the proud young fool that he was, remained silent,
disdaining to protest his innocence in the face of his
father’s disbelief. He came out furious from the interview—his
friend was waiting for him. A week later war
was declared. The two friends enlisted together. You
know what happened. The best pal a man ever had was
killed, partly through his own mad recklessness in rushing
into unnecessary danger. He died with his name
tarnished. . . .

“I swear to you, Anne, that it was mainly on his account
that I was so bitter against that woman. It had
gone deeper with him than with me. I had been madly
in love with her for the moment—I even think that I
frightened her sometimes—but with him it was a quieter
and deeper feeling. She had been the very centre of his
universe—and her betrayal of him tore up the very roots
of life. The blow stunned him and left him paralyzed.”

Harry paused. After a minute or two he went on:

“As you know, I was reported ‘Missing, presumed
killed.’ I never troubled to correct the mistake. I took
the name of Parker and came to this island, which I knew
of old. At the beginning of the war, I had had ambitious
hopes of proving my innocence, but now all that spirit
seemed dead. All I felt was, ‘What’s the good?’ My
pal was dead, neither he nor I had any living relations
who would care. I was supposed to be dead too, let it
remain at that. I led a peaceful existence here, neither
happy nor unhappy—numbed of all feeling. I see now,
though I did not realize it at the time, that that was
partly the effect of the war.

“And then one day something occurred to wake me
right up again. I was taking a party of people in my
boat on a trip up the river, and I was standing at the
landing-stage, helping them in, when one of the men
uttered a startled exclamation. It focused my attention
on him. He was a small, thin man with a beard, and he
was staring at me for all he was worth as though I was
a ghost. So powerful was his emotion that it awakened
my curiosity. I made inquiries about him at the hotel
and learned that his name was Carton, that he came from
Kimberley, and that he was a diamond-sorter employed
by De Beers’. In a minute all the old sense of wrong
surged over me again. I left the island and went to
Kimberley.

“I could find out little more about him, however. In
the end, I decided that I must force an interview. I took
my revolver with me. In the brief glimpse I had had of
him, I had realized that he was a physical coward. No
sooner were we face to face than I recognized that he
was afraid of me. I soon forced him to tell me all he
knew. He had engineered part of the robbery and Anita
Grünberg was his wife. He had once caught sight of
both of us when we were dining with her at the hotel,
and, having read that I was killed, my appearance in the
flesh at the Falls had startled him badly. He and Anita
had married quite young, but she had soon drifted away
from him. She had got in with a bad lot, he told me—and
it was then for the first time that I heard of the
‘Colonel.’ Carton himself had never been mixed up in
anything except this one affair—so he solemnly assured
me, and I was inclined to believe him. He was emphatically
not of the stuff of which successful criminals are
made.

“I still had the feeling that he was keeping back something.
As a test, I threatened to shoot him there and
then, declaring that I cared very little what became of me
now. In a frenzy of terror he poured out a further story.
It seems that Anita Grünberg did not quite trust the
‘Colonel.’ Whilst pretending to hand over to him the
stones she had taken from the hotel, she kept back some
in her own possession. Carton advised her, with his
technical knowledge, which to keep. If, at any time, these
stones were produced, they were of such colour and quality
as to be readily identifiable, and the experts at De
Beers’ would admit at once that these stones had never
passed through their hands. In this way my story of a
substitution would be supported, my name would be
cleared, and suspicion would be diverted to the proper
quarter. I gathered that, contrary to his usual practice,
the ‘Colonel’ himself had been concerned in this affair,
therefore Anita felt satisfied that she had a real hold over
him, should she need it. Carton now proposed that I
should make a bargain with Anita Grünberg, or Nadina,
as she now called herself. For a sufficient sum of money
he thought that she would be willing to give up the diamonds
and betray her former employer. He would cable
to her immediately.

“I was still suspicious of Carton. He was a man whom
it was easy enough to frighten, but who, in his fright,
would tell so many lies that to sift the truth out from
them would be no easy job. I went back to the hotel and
waited. By the following evening I judged that he would
have received the reply to his cable. I called round at
his house and was told that Mr. Carton was away, but
would be returning on the morrow. Instantly I became
suspicious. In the nick of time I found out that he was
in reality sailing for England on the Kilmorden Castle,
which left Cape Town in two days’ time. I had just time
to journey down and catch the same boat.

“I had no intention of alarming Carton by revealing
my presence on board. I had done a good deal of acting
in my time at Cambridge, and it was comparatively easy
for me to transform myself into a grave bearded gentleman
of middle age. I avoided Carton carefully on board
the boat, keeping to my own cabin as far as possible under
the pretence of illness.

“I had no difficulty in trailing him when we got to
London. He went straight to an hotel and did not go out
until the following day. He left the hotel shortly before
one o’clock. I was behind him. He went straight to a
house-agent in Knightsbridge. There he asked for particulars
of houses to let on the river.

“I was at the next table also inquiring about houses.
Then suddenly in walked Anita Grünberg, Nadina—whatever
you like to call her. Superb, insolent, and almost as
beautiful as ever. God! how I hated her. There she
was, the woman who had ruined my life—and who had
also ruined a better life than mine. At that minute I
could have put my hands round her neck and squeezed
the life out of her inch by inch! Just for a minute or
two I saw red. I hardly took in what the agent was saying.
It was her voice that I heard next, high and clear,
with an exaggerated foreign accent: ‘The Mill House,
Marlow. The property of Sir Eustace Pedler. That
sounds as though it might suit me. At any rate, I will
go and see it.’

“The man wrote her an order, and she walked out again
in her regal insolent manner. Not by word or a sign had
she recognized Carton, yet I was sure that their meeting
there was a preconceived plan. Then I started to jump
to conclusions. Not knowing that Sir Eustace was at
Cannes, I thought that this house-hunting business was a
mere pretext for meeting him in the Mill House. I knew
that he had been in South Africa at the time of the robbery,
and never having seen him I immediately leaped to
the conclusion that he himself was the mysterious ‘Colonel’
of whom I had heard so much.

“I followed my two suspects along Knightsbridge.
Nadina went into the Hyde Park Hotel. I quickened my
pace and went in also. She walked straight into the restaurant,
and I decided that I would not risk her recognizing
me at the moment, but would continue to follow
Carton. I was in great hopes that he was going to get
the diamonds, and that by suddenly appearing and making
myself known to him when he least expected it I
might startle the truth out of him. I followed him down
into the Tube station at Hyde Park Corner. He was
standing by himself at the end of the platform. There
was some girl standing near, but no one else. I decided
that I would accost him then and there. You know what
happened. In the sudden shock of seeing a man whom he
imagined far away in South Africa, he lost his head and
stepped back upon the line. He was always a coward.
Under the pretext of being a doctor, I managed to search
his pockets. There was a wallet with some notes in it
and one or two unimportant letters, there was a roll of
films—which I must have dropped somewhere later—and
there was a piece of paper with an appointment made on
it for the 22nd on the Kilmorden Castle. In my haste to
get away before any one detained me, I dropped that
also, but fortunately I remembered the figures.

“I hurried to the nearest cloak-room and hastily removed
my make-up. I did not want to be laid by the
heels for picking a dead man’s pocket. Then I retraced
my steps to the Hyde Park Hotel. Nadina was still having
lunch. I needn’t describe in detail how I followed
her down to Marlow. She went into the house, and I
spoke to the woman at the lodge, pretending that I was
with her. Then I, too, went in.”

He stopped. There was a tense silence.

“You will believe me, Anne, won’t you? I swear before
God that what I am going to say is true. I went into the
house after her with something very like murder in my
heart—and she was dead! I found her in that first-floor
room—God! It was horrible. Dead—and I was not
more than three minutes behind her. And there was no
sign of any one else in the house! Of course I realized at
once the terrible position I was in. By one master-stroke
the blackmailed had rid himself of the blackmailer, and at
the same time had provided a victim to whom the crime
would be ascribed. The hand of the ‘Colonel’ was very
plain. For the second time I was to be his victim. Fool
that I had been to walk into the trap so easily.

“I hardly know what I did next. I managed to go out
of the place looking fairly normal, but I knew that it
could not be long before the crime was discovered and a
description of my appearance telegraphed all over the
country.

“I lay low for some days, not daring to make a move.
In the end chance came to my aid. I overheard a conversation
between two middle-aged gentlemen in the
street, one of whom proved to be Sir Eustace Pedler. I
at once conceived the idea of attaching myself to him as
his secretary. The fragment of conversation I had overheard
gave me my clue. I was now no longer so sure that
Sir Eustace Pedler was the ‘Colonel.’ His house might
have been appointed as a rendezvous by accident, or for
some obscure motive that I had not fathomed.”

“Do you know,” I interrupted, “that Guy Pagett was
in Marlow at the date of the murder?”

“That settles it then. I thought he was at Cannes with
Sir Eustace.”

“He was supposed to be in Florence—but he certainly
never went there. I’m pretty certain he was really in
Marlow, but of course I can’t prove it.”

“And to think I never suspected Pagett for a minute
until the night he tried to throw you overboard. The
man’s a marvellous actor.”

“Yes, isn’t he?”

“That explains why the Mill House was chosen. Pagett
could probably get in and out of it unobserved. Of
course he made no objection to my accompanying Sir
Eustace across in the boat. He didn’t want me laid by
the heels immediately. You see, evidently Nadina didn’t
bring the jewels with her to the rendezvous as they had
counted on her doing. I fancy that Carton really had
them and concealed them somewhere on the Kilmorden
Castle—that’s where he came in. They hoped that I
might have some clue as to where they were hidden. As
long as the ‘Colonel’ did not recover the diamonds, he was
still in danger—hence his anxiety to get them at all costs.
Where the devil Carton hid them—if he did hide them,
I don’t know.”

“That’s another story,” I quoted. “My story. And
I’m going to tell it you now.”

CHAPTER XXVII

Harry listened attentively whilst I recounted all
the events that I have narrated in these pages.
The thing that bewildered and astonished him
most was to find that all along the diamonds had been
in my possession—or rather in Suzanne’s. That was a
fact he had never suspected. Of course, after hearing
his story, I realized the point of Carton’s little arrangement—or
rather Nadina’s, since I had no doubt that it
was her brain which had conceived the plan. No surprise
tactics executed against her or her husband could
result in the seizure of the diamonds. The secret was
locked in her own brain, and the “Colonel” was not
likely to guess that they had been entrusted to the keeping
of an ocean steward!

Harry’s vindication from the old charge of theft seemed
assured. It was the other, graver charge that paralyzed
all our activities. For, as things stood, he could not come
out in the open to prove his case.

The one thing we came back to, again and again, was
the identity of the “Colonel.” Was he, or was he not,
Guy Pagett?

“I should say he was but for one thing,” said Harry.
“It seems pretty much of a certainty that it was Pagett
who murdered Anita Grünberg at Marlow—and that certainly
lends colour to the supposition that he is actually
the ‘Colonel,’ since Anita’s business was not of the nature
to be discussed with a subordinate. No—the only thing
that militates against that theory is the attempt to put
you out of the way on the night of your arrival here.
You saw Pagett left behind at Cape Town—by no possible
means could he have arrived here before the following
Wednesday. He is unlikely to have any emissaries
in this part of the world, and all his plans were laid to
deal with you in Cape Town. He might, of course, have
cabled instructions to some lieutenant of his in Johannesburg,
who could have joined the Rhodesian train at
Mafeking, but his instructions would have had to be
particularly definite to allow of that note being written.”

We sat silent for a moment, then Harry went on slowly:
“You say that Mrs. Blair was asleep when you left the
hotel and that you heard Sir Eustace dictating to Miss
Pettigrew? Where was Colonel Race?”

“I could not find him anywhere.”

“Had he any reason to believe that—you and I might
be friendly with each other?”

“He might have had,” I answered thoughtfully, remembering
our conversation on the way back from the Matoppos.
“He’s a very powerful personality,” I continued,
“but not at all my idea of the ‘Colonel.’ And, anyway,
such an idea would be absurd. He’s in the Secret Service.”

“How do we know that he is? It’s the easiest thing
in the world to throw out a hint of that kind. No one
contradicts it, and the rumour spreads until every one
believes it as gospel truth. It provides an excuse for
all sorts of doubtful doings. Anne, do you like Race?”

“I do—and I don’t. He repels me and at the same
time fascinates me; but I know one thing, I’m always a
little afraid of him.”

“He was in South Africa, you know, at the time of the
Kimberley robbery,” said Harry slowly.

“But it was he who told Suzanne all about the ‘Colonel’
and how he had been in Paris trying to get on his track.”

“Camouflage—of a particularly clever kind.”

“But where does Pagett come in? Is he in Race’s
pay?”

“Perhaps,” said Harry slowly, “he doesn’t come in at
all.”

“What?”

“Think back, Anne. Did you ever hear Pagett’s own
account of that night on the Kilmorden?”

“Yes—through Sir Eustace.”

I repeated it. Harry listened closely.

“He saw a man coming from the direction of Sir Eustace’s
cabin and followed him up on deck. Is that what
he says? Now, who had the cabin opposite to Sir Eustace?
Colonel Race. Supposing Colonel Race crept up
on deck, and, foiled in his attack on you, fled round the
deck and met Pagett just coming through the saloon door.
He knocks him down and springs inside, closing the door.
We dash round and find Pagett lying there. How’s
that?”

“You forget that he declares positively it was you who
knocked him down.”

“Well, suppose that just as he regains consciousness he
sees me disappearing in the distance? Wouldn’t he take
it for granted that I was his assailant? Especially as he
thought all along it was I he was following?”

“It’s possible, yes,” I said slowly. “But it alters all
our ideas. And there are other things.”

“Most of them are open to explanation. The man who
followed you in Cape Town spoke to Pagett, and Pagett
looked at his watch. The man might have merely asked
him the time.”

“It was just a coincidence, you mean?”

“Not exactly. There’s a method in all this, connecting
Pagett with the affair. Why was the Mill House chosen
for the murder? Was it because Pagett had been in Kimberley
when the diamonds were stolen? Would he have
been made the scapegoat if I had not appeared so providentially
upon the scene?”

“Then you think he may be entirely innocent?”

“It looks like it, but, if so, we’ve got to find out what he
was doing in Marlow. If he’s got a reasonable explanation
of that, we’re on the right tack.”

He got up.

“It’s past midnight. Turn in, Anne, and get some sleep.
Just before dawn I’ll take you over in the boat. You
must catch the train at Livingstone. I’ve got a friend
there who will keep you hidden away until the train starts.
You go to Bulawayo and catch the Beira train there. I
can find out from my friend in Livingstone what’s going
on at the hotel and where your friends are now.”

“Beira,” I said meditatively.

“Yes, Anne, it’s Beira for you. This is man’s work.
Leave it to me.”

We had had a momentary respite from emotion whilst
we talked the situation out, but it was on us again now.
We did not even look at each other.

“Very well,” I said, and passed into the hut.

I lay down on the skin-covered couch, but I didn’t
sleep, and outside I could hear Harry Rayburn pacing up
and down, up and down through the long dark hours. At
last he called me:

“Come, Anne, it’s time to go.”

I got up and came out obediently. It was still quite
dark, but I knew that dawn was not far off.

“We’ll take the canoe, not the motor-boat——” Harry
began, when suddenly he stopped dead and held up his
hand.

“Hush! What’s that?”

I listened, but could hear nothing. His ears were
sharper than mine, however, the ears of a man who has
lived long in the wilderness. Presently I heard it too—the
faint splash of paddles in the water coming from the
direction of the right bank of the river and rapidly approaching
our little landing-stage.

We strained our eyes in the darkness, and could make
out a dark blur on the surface of the water. It was a
boat. Then there was a momentary spurt of flame. Some
one had struck a match. By its light I recognized one
figure, the red-bearded Dutchman of the villa at Muizenberg.
The others were natives.

“Quick—back to the hut.”

Harry swept me back with him. He took down a
couple of rifles and a revolver from the wall.

“Can you load a rifle?”

“I never have. Show me how.”

I grasped his instructions well enough. We closed
the door and Harry stood by the window which overlooked
the landing-stage. The boat was just about to
run alongside it.

“Who’s that?” called out Harry in a ringing voice.

Any doubt we might have had as to our visitors’ intentions
was swiftly resolved. A hail of bullets splattered
round us. Fortunately neither of us was hit. Harry
raised the rifle. It spat murderously, and again and again.
I heard two groans and a splash.

“That’s given ’em something to think about,” he muttered
grimly, as he reached for the second rifle. “Stand
well back, Anne, for God’s sake. And load quickly.”

More bullets. One just grazed Harry’s cheek. His
answering fire was more deadly than theirs. I had the
rifle reloaded when he turned for it. He caught me close
with his left arm and kissed me once savagely before he
turned to the window again. Suddenly he uttered a shout.

“They’re going—had enough of it. They’re a good
mark out there on the water, and they can’t see how many
of us there are. They’re routed for the moment—but
they’ll come back. We’ll have to get ready for them.”
He flung down the rifle and turned to me.

“Anne! You beauty! You wonder! You little queen!
As brave as a lion. Black-haired witch!”

He caught me in his arms. He kissed my hair, my eyes,
my mouth.

“And now to business,” he said, suddenly releasing me.
“Get out those tins of paraffin.”

I did as I was told. He was busy inside the hut.
Presently I saw him on the roof of the hut, crawling
along with something in his arms. He rejoined me in a
minute or two.

“Go down to the boat. We’ll have to carry it across
the island to the other side.”

He picked up the paraffin as I disappeared.

“They’re coming back,” I called softly. I had seen
the blur moving out from the opposite shore.

He ran down to me.

“Just in time. Why—where the hell’s the boat?”
Both had been cut adrift. Harry whistled softly.
“We’re in a tight place, honey. Mind?”

“Not with you.”

“Ah, but dying together’s not much fun. We’ll do
better than that. See—they’ve got two boat-loads this
time. Going to land at two different points. Now for
my little scenic effect.”

Almost as he spoke a long flame shot up from the hut.
Its light illuminated two crouching figures huddled together
on the roof.

“My old clothes—stuffed with rags—but they won’t
tumble to it for some time. Come, Anne, we’ve got to
try desperate means.”

Hand in hand, we raced across the island. Only a
narrow channel of water divided it from the shore on
that side.

“We’ve got to swim for it. Can you swim at all,
Anne? Not that it matters. I can get you across. It’s
the wrong side for a boat——too many rocks, but the
right side for swimming, and the right side for Livingstone.”

“I can swim a little—farther than that. What’s the
danger, Harry?” For I had seen the grim look on his
face. “Sharks?”

“No, you little goose. Sharks live in the sea. But
you’re sharp, Anne. Crocs, that’s the trouble.”

“Crocodiles?”

“Yes, don’t think of them—or say your prayers, whichever
you feel inclined.”

We plunged in. My prayers must have been efficacious,
for we reached the shore without adventure, and drew ourselves
up wet and dripping on the bank.

“Now for Livingstone. It’s rough going, I’m afraid,
and wet clothes won’t make it any better. But it’s got
to be done.”

That walk was a nightmare. My wet skirts flapped
round my legs, and my stockings were soon torn off by the
thorns. Finally I stopped, utterly exhausted. Harry
came back to me.

“Hold up, honey. I’ll carry you for a bit.”

That was the way I came into Livingstone, slung across
his shoulder like a sack of coals. How he did it for all
that way, I don’t know. The first faint light of dawn was
just breaking. Harry’s friend was a young man of twenty
odd who kept a store of native curios. His name was
Ned—perhaps he had another, but I never heard it. He
didn’t seem in the least surprised to see Harry walk in,
dripping wet, holding an equally dripping female by the
hand. Men are very wonderful.

He gave us food to eat, and hot coffee, and got our
clothes dried for us whilst we rolled ourselves in Manchester
blankets of gaudy hue. In the tiny back room
of the hut we were safe from observation whilst he departed
to make judicious inquiries as to what had become
of Sir Eustace’s party, and whether any of them were
still at the hotel.

It was then that I informed Harry that nothing would
induce me to go to Beira. I never meant to, anyway, but
now all reason for such proceedings had vanished. The
point of the plan had been that my enemies believed me
dead. Now that they knew I wasn’t dead, my going to
Beira would do no good whatever. They could easily
follow me there and murder me quietly. I should have
no one to protect me. It was finally arranged that I
should join Suzanne, wherever she was, and devote all
my energies to taking care of myself. On no account
was I to seek adventures or endeavour to checkmate the
“Colonel.”

I was to remain quietly with her and await instructions
from Harry. The diamonds were to be deposited in the
Bank at Kimberley under the name of Parker.

“There’s one thing,” I said thoughtfully, “we ought to
have a code of some kind. We don’t want to be hoodwinked
again by messages purporting to come from one to
the other.”

“That’s easy enough. Any message that comes genuinely
from me will have the word ‘and’ crossed out in
it.”

“Without trade-mark, none genuine,” I murmured.
“What about wires?”

“Any wires from me will be signed ‘Andy.’”

“Train will be in before long, Harry,” said Ned, putting
his head in and withdrawing it immediately.

I stood up.

“And shall I marry a nice steady man if I find one?”
I asked demurely.

Harry came close to me.

“My God! Anne, if you ever marry any one else but
me, I’ll wring his neck. And as for you——”

“Yes,” I said, pleasurably excited.

“I shall carry you away and beat you black and blue!”

“What a delightful husband I have chosen,” I said
satirically. “And doesn’t he change his mind overnight!”

CHAPTER XXVIII

As I remarked once before, I am essentially a man of
peace. I yearn for a quiet life—and that’s just
the one thing I don’t seem able to have. I am
always in the middle of storms and alarms. The relief
of getting away from Pagett with his incessant nosing
out of intrigues was enormous, and Miss Pettigrew is certainly
a useful creature. Although there is nothing of the
houri about her, one or two of her accomplishments are
invaluable. It is true that I had a touch of liver at Bulawayo
and behaved like a bear in consequence, but I had
had a disturbed night in the train. At 3 a.m. an exquisitely
dressed young man looking like a musical-comedy
hero of the Wild West entered my compartment and
asked where I was going. Disregarding my first murmur
of “Tea—and for God’s sake don’t put sugar in it,” he
repeated his question, laying stress on the fact that he
was not a waiter but an Immigration officer. I finally
succeeded in satisfying him that I was suffering from no
infectious disease, that I was visiting Rhodesia from the
purest of motives, and further gratified him with my full
Christian names and my place of birth. I then endeavoured
to snatch a little sleep, but some officious ass
aroused me at 5.30 with a cup of liquid sugar which he
called tea. I don’t think I threw it at him, but I know
that that was what I wanted to do. He brought me
unsugared tea, stone cold, at 6, and I then fell asleep
utterly exhausted, to awaken just outside Bulawayo and
be landed with a beastly wooden giraffe, all legs and
neck!

But for these small contretemps, all had been going
smoothly. And then fresh calamity befell.

It was the night of our arrival at the Falls. I was
dictating to Miss Pettigrew in my sitting-room, when
suddenly Mrs. Blair burst in without a word of excuse
and wearing most compromising attire.

“Where’s Anne?” she cried.

A nice question to ask. As though I were responsible
for the girl. What did she expect Miss Pettigrew to
think? That I was in the habit of producing Anne Beddingfeld
from my pocket at midnight or thereabouts?
Very compromising for a man in my position.

“I presume,” I said coldly, “that she is in her bed.”

I cleared my throat and glanced at Miss Pettigrew,
to show that I was ready to resume dictating. I hoped
Mrs. Blair would take the hint. She did nothing of the
kind. Instead she sank into a chair and waved a slippered
foot in an agitated manner.

“She’s not in her room. I’ve been there. I had a
dream—a terrible dream—that she was in some awful
danger, and I got up and went to her room, just to
reassure myself, you know. She wasn’t there and her
bed hadn’t been slept in.”

She looked at me appealingly.

“What shall I do, Sir Eustace?”

Repressing the desire to reply, “Go to bed, and don’t
worry over nothing. An able-bodied young woman like
Anne Beddingfeld is perfectly well able to take care of
herself,” I frowned judicially.

“What does Race say about it?”

Why should Race have it all his own way? Let him
have some of the disadvantages as well as the advantages
of female society.

“I can’t find him anywhere.”

She was evidently making a night of it. I sighed and
sat down in a chair.

“I don’t quite see the reason for your agitation,” I said
patiently.

“My dream——”

“That curry we had for dinner!”

“Oh, Sir Eustace!”

The woman was quite indignant. And yet everybody
knows that nightmares are a direct result of injudicious
eating.

“After all,” I continued persuasively, “why shouldn’t
Anne Beddingfeld and Race go out for a little stroll without
having the whole hotel aroused about it?”

“You think they’ve just gone out for a stroll together?
But it’s after midnight!”

“One does these foolish things when one is young,”
I murmured, “though Race is certainly old enough to
know better.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I dare say they’ve run away to make a match of it,”
I continued soothingly, though fully aware that I was
making an idiotic suggestion. For, after all, at a place
like this, where is there to run away to?

I don’t know how much longer I should have gone on
making feeble remarks, but at that moment Race himself
walked in upon us. At any rate, I had been partly right—he
had been out for a stroll, but he hadn’t taken Anne
with him. However, I had been quite wrong in my way
of dealing with the situation. I was soon shown that.
Race had the whole hotel turned upside-down in three
minutes. I’ve never seen a man more upset.

The thing is very extraordinary. Where did the girl
go? She walked out of the hotel, fully dressed, about ten
minutes past eleven, and she was never seen again. The
idea of suicide seems impossible. She was one of those
energetic young women who are in love with life, and have
not the faintest intention of quitting it. There was no
train either way until midday on the morrow, so she can’t
have left the place. Then where the devil is she?

Race is almost beside himself, poor fellow. He has left
no stone unturned. All the D.C.’s, or whatever they call
themselves, for hundreds of miles round have been pressed
into the service. The native trackers have run about on
all fours. Everything that can be done is being done—but
no sign of Anne Beddingfeld. The accepted theory
is that she walked in her sleep. There are signs on the
path near the bridge which seem to show that the girl
walked deliberately off the edge. If so, of course, she
must have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Unfortunately,
most of the footprints were obliterated by a
party of tourists who chose to walk that way early on the
Monday morning.

I don’t know that it’s a very satisfactory theory. In
my young days, I always was told that sleep-walkers
couldn’t hurt themselves—that their own sixth sense took
care of them. I don’t think the theory satisfies Mrs.
Blair either.

I can’t make that woman out. Her whole attitude
towards Race has changed. She watches him now like a
cat a mouse, and she makes obvious efforts to bring herself
to be civil to him. And they used to be such friends.
Altogether she is unlike herself, nervous, hysterical, starting
and jumping at the least sound. I am beginning to
think that it is high time I went to Jo’burg.

A rumour came along yesterday of a mysterious island
somewhere up the river, with a man and a girl on it. Race
got very excited. It turned out to be all a mare’s-nest,
however. The man had been there for years, and is well
known to the manager of the hotel. He totes parties up
and down the river in the season and points out crocodiles
and a stray hippopotamus or so to them. I believe
that he keeps a tame one which is trained to bite pieces
out of the boat on occasions. Then he fends it off with
a boat-hook, and the party feel they have really got to
the back of beyond at last. How long the girl has been
there is not definitely known, but it seems pretty clear
that she can’t be Anne, and there is a certain delicacy in
interfering in other people’s affairs. If I were this young
fellow, I should certainly kick Race off the island if he
came asking questions about my love affairs.

Later.

It is definitely settled that I go to Jo’burg to-morrow.
Race urges me to do so. Things are getting unpleasant
there, by all I hear, but I might as well go before they
get worse. I dare say I shall be shot by a striker, anyway.
Mrs. Blair was to have accompanied me, but at the
last minute she changed her mind and decided to stay on
at the Falls. It seems as though she couldn’t bear to
take her eyes off Race. She came to me to-night and
said, with some hesitation, that she had a favour to ask.
Would I take charge of her souvenirs for her?

“Not the animals?” I asked, in lively alarm. I always
felt that I should get stuck with those beastly animals
sooner or later.

In the end we effected a compromise. I took charge
of two small wooden boxes for her which contained fragile
articles. The animals are to be packed by the local store
in vast crates and sent to Cape Town by rail, where
Pagett will see to their being stored.

The people who are packing them say that they are
of a particularly awkward shape (!), and that special
cases will have to be made. I pointed out to Mrs. Blair
that by the time she has got them home those animals
will have cost her easily a pound apiece!

Pagett is straining at the leash to rejoin me in Jo’burg.
I shall make an excuse of Mrs. Blair’s cases to keep him
in Cape Town. I have written him that he must receive
the cases and see to their safe disposal, as they contain
rare curios of immense value.

So all is settled, and I and Miss Pettigrew go off into
the blue together. And any one who has seen Miss
Pettigrew will admit that it is perfectly respectable.

CHAPTER XXIX

There is something about the state of things here
that is not at all healthy. To use the well-known
phrase that I have so often read, we are all living
on the edge of a volcano. Bands of strikers, or so-called
strikers, patrol the streets and scowl at one in a murderous
fashion. They are picking out the bloated capitalists
ready for when the massacres begin, I suppose.
You can’t ride in a taxi—if you do, strikers pull you out
again. And the hotels hint pleasantly that when the food
gives out they will fling you out on the mat!

I met Reeves, my labour friend of the Kilmorden, last
night. He has cold feet worse than any man I ever saw.
He’s like all the rest of these people, they make inflammatory
speeches of enormous length, solely for political
purposes, and then wish they hadn’t. He’s busy now
going about and saying he didn’t really do it. When I
met him, he was just off to Cape Town, where he meditates
making a three days’ speech in Dutch, vindicating
himself, and pointing out that the things he said really
meant something entirely different. I am thankful that
I do not have to sit in the Legislative Assembly of South
Africa. The House of Commons is bad enough, but at
least we have only one language, and some slight restriction
as to length of speeches. When I went to the Assembly
before leaving Cape Town, I listened to a gray-haired
gentleman with a drooping moustache who looked
exactly like the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland.

He dropped out his words one by one in a particularly
melancholy fashion. Every now and then he galvanized
himself to further efforts by ejaculating something that
sounded like “Platt Skeet,” uttered fortissimo and in
marked contrast to the rest of his delivery. When he
did this, half his audience yelled “Whoof, whoof!”
which is possibly Dutch for “Hear, hear,” and the other
half woke up with a start from the pleasant nap they
had been having. I was given to understand that the
gentleman had been speaking for at least three days.
They must have a lot of patience in South Africa.

I have invented endless jobs to keep Pagett in Cape
Town, but at last the fertility of my imagination has given
out, and he joins me to-morrow in the spirit of the faithful
dog who comes to die by his master’s side. And I
was getting on so well with my Reminiscences too! I
had invented some extraordinarily witty things that the
strike leaders said to me and I said to the strike leaders.

This morning I was interviewed by a Government official.
He was urbane, persuasive and mysterious in turn.
To begin with, he alluded to my exalted position and
importance and suggested that I should remove myself,
or be removed by him, to Pretoria.

“You expect trouble, then?” I asked.

His reply was so worded as to have no meaning whatsoever,
so I gathered that they were expecting serious
trouble. I suggested to him that his Government were
letting things go rather far.

“There is such a thing as giving a man enough rope,
and letting him hang himself, Sir Eustace.”

“Oh, quite so, quite so.”

“It is not the strikers themselves who are causing the
trouble. There is some organization at work behind
them. Arms and explosives have been pouring in, and
we have made a haul of certain documents which throw
a good deal of light on the methods adopted to import
them. There is a regular code. Potatoes mean ‘detonators,’
cauliflower, ‘rifles,’ other vegetables stand for
various explosives.”

“That’s very interesting,” I commended.

“More than that, Sir Eustace, we have every reason to
believe that the man who runs the whole show, the directing
genius of the affair, is at this minute in Johannesburg.”

He stared at me so hard that I began to fear that he
suspected me of being the man. I broke out into a cold
perspiration at the thought, and began to regret that I
had ever conceived the idea of inspecting a miniature
revolution at first hand.

“No trains are running from Jo’burg to Pretoria,” he
continued. “But I can arrange to send you over by
private car. In case you should be stopped on the way I
can provide you with two separate passes, one issued by
the Union Government, and the other stating that you
are an English visitor who has nothing whatsoever to
do with the Union.”

“One for your people, and one for the strikers, eh?”

“Exactly.”

The project did not appeal to me—I know what happens
in a case of that kind. You get flustered and mix
the things up. I should hand the wrong pass to the
wrong person, and it would end in my being summarily
shot by a bloodthirsty rebel, or one of the supporters of
law and order whom I notice guarding the streets wearing
bowler hats and smoking pipes, with rifles tucked carelessly
under their arms. Besides, what should I do with
myself in Pretoria? Admire the architecture of the Union
buildings and listen to the echoes of the shooting round
Johannesburg? I should be penned up there God knows
how long. They’ve blown up the railway line already,
I hear. It isn’t even as if one could get a drink there.
They put the place under martial law two days ago.

“My dear fellow,” I said, “you don’t seem to realize
that I’m studying conditions on the Rand. How the
devil am I going to study them from Pretoria? I appreciate
your care for my safety, but don’t you worry
about me. I shall be all right.”

“I warn you, Sir Eustace, that the food question is
already serious.”

“A little fasting will improve my figure,” I said, with
a sigh.

We were interrupted by a telegram being handed to
me. I read it with amazement:

“Anne is safe. Here with me at Kimberley. Suzanne
Blair.”

I don’t think I ever really believed in the annihilation
of Anne. There is something peculiarly indestructible
about that young woman—she is like the patent balls that
one gives to terriers. She has an extraordinary knack of
turning up smiling. I still don’t see why it was necessary
for her to walk out of the hotel in the middle of the night
in order to get to Kimberley. There was no train, anyway.
She must have put on a pair of angel’s wings and
flown there. And I don’t suppose she will ever explain.
Nobody does—to me. I always have to guess. It becomes
monotonous after a while. The exigencies of journalism
are at the bottom of it, I suppose. “How I shot
the rapids,” by our Special Correspondent.

I refolded the telegram and got rid of my Governmental
friend. I don’t like the prospect of being hungry, but
I’m not alarmed for my personal safety. Smuts is perfectly
capable of dealing with the revolution. But I
would give a considerable sum of money for a drink!
I wonder if Pagett will have the sense to bring a bottle of
whisky with him when he arrives to-morrow?

I put on my hat and went out, intending to buy a few
souvenirs. The curio-shops in Jo’burg are rather pleasant.
I was just studying a window full of imposing
karosses, when a man coming out of the shop cannoned
into me. To my surprise it turned out to be Race.

I can’t flatter myself that he looked pleased to see me.
As a matter of fact, he looked distinctly annoyed, but I
insisted on his accompanying me back to the hotel. I
get tired of having no one but Miss Pettigrew to talk
to.

“I had no idea you were in Jo’burg,” I said chattily.
“When did you arrive?”

“Last night.”

“Where are you staying?”

“With friends.”

He was disposed to be extraordinarily taciturn, and
seemed to be embarrassed by my questions.

“I hope they keep poultry,” I remarked. “A diet of
new-laid eggs and the occasional slaughtering of an old
cock will be decidedly agreeable soon from all I hear.”

“By the way,” I said, when we were back in the hotel,
“have you heard that Miss Beddingfeld is alive and
kicking?”

He nodded.

“She gave us quite a fright,” I said airily. “Where
the devil did she go to that night, that’s what I’d like to
know.”

“She was on the island all the time.”

“Which island? Not the one with the young man
on it?”

“Yes.”

“How very improper,” I said. “Pagett will be quite
shocked. He always did disapprove of Anne Beddingfeld.
I suppose that was the young man she originally intended
to meet in Durban?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to,” I said,
by way of encouraging him.

“I fancy that this is a young man we should all be very
glad to lay our hands on.”

“Not——?” I cried, in rising excitement.

He nodded.

“Harry Rayburn, alias Harry Lucas—that’s his real
name, you know. He’s given us all the slip once more,
but we’re bound to rope him in soon.”

“Dear me, dear me,” I murmured.

“We don’t suspect the girl of complicity in any case.
On her side it’s—just a love-affair.”

I always did think Race was in love with Anne. The
way he said those last words made me feel sure of it.

“She’s gone to Beira,” he continued rather hastily.

“Indeed,” I said, staring. “How do you know?”

“She wrote to me from Bulawayo, telling me she was
going home that way. The best thing she can do, poor
child.”

“Somehow, I don’t fancy she is in Beira,” I said meditatively.

“She was just starting when she wrote.”

I was puzzled. Somebody was clearly lying. Without
stopping to reflect that Anne might have excellent reasons
for her misleading statements, I gave myself up to the
pleasure of scoring off Race. He is always so cocksure.
I took the telegram from my pocket and handed it to
him.

“Then how do you explain this?” I asked nonchalantly.

He seemed dumbfounded.

“She said she was just starting for Beira,” he said, in
a dazed voice.

I know that Race is supposed to be clever. He is, in
my opinion, rather a stupid man. It never seemed to
occur to him that girls do not always tell the truth.

“Kimberley too. What are they doing there?” he
muttered.

“Yes, that surprised me. I should have thought Miss
Anne would have been in the thick of it here, gathering
copy for the Daily Budget.”

“Kimberley,” he said again. The place seemed to
upset him. “There’s nothing to see there—the pits aren’t
being worked.”

“You know what women are,” I said vaguely.

He shook his head and went off. I have evidently
given him something to think about.

No sooner had he departed than my Government official
reappeared.

“I hope you will forgive me for troubling you again,
Sir Eustace,” he apologized. “But there are one or two
questions I should like to ask you.”

“Certainly, my dear fellow,” I said cheerfully. “Ask
away.”

“It concerns your secretary——”

“I know nothing about him,” I said hastily. “He
foisted himself upon me in London, robbed me of valuable
papers—for which I shall be hauled over the coals—and
disappeared like a conjuring trick at Cape Town. It’s
true that I was at the Falls at the same time as he was,
but I was at the hotel, and he was on an island. I can
assure you that I never set eyes upon him the whole time
that I was there.”

I paused for breath.

“You misunderstand me. It was of your other secretary
that I spoke.”

“What? Pagett?” I cried, in lively astonishment.
“He’s been with me eight years—a most trustworthy fellow.”

My interlocutor smiled.

“We are still at cross-purposes. I refer to the lady.”

“Miss Pettigrew?” I exclaimed.

“Yes. She has been seen coming out of Agrasato’s
Native Curio-shop.”

“God bless my soul!” I interrupted. “I was going
into that place myself this afternoon. You might have
caught me coming out!”

There doesn’t seem to be any innocent thing that one
can do in Jo’burg without being suspected for it.

“Ah! but she has been there more than once—and in
rather doubtful circumstances. I may as well tell you—in
confidence, Sir Eustace—that the place is suspected of
being a well-known rendezvous used by the secret organization
behind this revolution. That is why I should
be glad to hear all that you can tell me about this lady.
Where and how did you come to engage her?”

“She was lent to me,” I replied coldly, “by your own
Government.”

He collapsed utterly.

CHAPTER XXX

As soon as I got to Kimberley I wired to Suzanne.

She joined me there with the utmost dispatch,
heralding her arrival with telegrams sent off en
route. I was awfully surprised to find that she really
was fond of me—I thought I had been just a new sensation,
but she positively fell on my neck and wept when
we met.

When we had recovered from our emotion a little, I sat
down on the bed and told her the whole story from A
to Z.

“You always did suspect Colonel Race,” she said
thoughtfully, when I had finished. “I didn’t until the
night you disappeared. I liked him so much all along
and thought he would make such a nice husband for you.
Oh, Anne, dear, don’t be cross, but how do you know that
this young man of yours is telling the truth? You believe
every word he says.”

“Of course I do,” I cried indignantly.

“But what is there in him that attracts you so? I
don’t see that there’s anything in him at all except his
rather reckless good looks and his modern Sheik-cum-Stone-Age
love-making.”

I poured out the vials of my wrath upon Suzanne for
some minutes.

“Just because you’re comfortably married and getting
fat, you’ve forgotten that there’s any such thing as
romance,” I ended.

“Oh, I’m not getting fat, Anne. All the worry I’ve
had about you lately must have worn me to a shred.”

“You look particularly well nourished,” I said coldly.
“I should say you must have put on about half a stone.”

“And I don’t know that I’m so comfortably married
either,” continued Suzanne in a melancholy voice. “I’ve
been having the most dreadful cables from Clarence ordering
me to come home at once. At last I didn’t answer
them, and now I haven’t heard for over a fortnight.”

I’m afraid I didn’t take Suzanne’s matrimonial troubles
very seriously. She will be able to get round Clarence all
right when the times comes. I turned the conversation
to the subject of the diamonds.

Suzanne looked at me with a dropped jaw.

“I must explain, Anne. You see, as soon as I began
to suspect Colonel Race, I was terribly upset about the
diamonds. I wanted to stay on at the Falls in case he
might have kidnapped you somewhere close by, but didn’t
know what to do about the diamonds. I was afraid to
keep them in my possession——”

Suzanne looked round her uneasily, as though she feared
the walls might have ears, and then whispered vehemently in my ear.

“A distinctly good idea,” I approved. “At the time,
that is. It’s a bit awkward now. What did Sir Eustace
do with the cases?”

“The big ones were sent down to Cape Town. I heard
from Pagett before I left the Falls, and he enclosed the
receipt for their storage. He’s leaving Cape Town to-day,
by the by, to join Sir Eustace in Johannesburg.”

“I see,” I said thoughtfully. “And the small ones,
where are they?”

“I suppose Sir Eustace has got them with him.”

I turned the matter over in my mind.

“Well,” I said at last, “it’s awkward—but it’s safe
enough. We’d better do nothing for the present.”

Suzanne looked at me with a little smile.

“You don’t like doing nothing, do you, Anne?”

“Not very much,” I replied honestly.

The one thing I could do was to get hold of a time-table
and see what time Guy Pagett’s train would pass through
Kimberley. I found that it would arrive at 5.40 on the
following afternoon and depart again at 6. I wanted to
see Pagett as soon as possible, and that seemed to me a
good opportunity. The situation on the Rand was getting
very serious, and it might be a long time before I got another
chance.

The only thing that livened up the day was a wire dispatched
from Johannesburg. A most innocent-sounding
telegram:

“Arrived safely. All going well. Eric here, also Eustace,
but not Guy. Remain where you are for the present.
Andy.”

Eric was our pseudonym for Race. I chose it because
it is a name I dislike exceedingly. There was clearly
nothing to be done until I could see Pagett. Suzanne
employed herself in sending off a long soothing cable to
the far-off Clarence. She became quite sentimental over
him. In her way—which of course is quite different from
me and Harry—she is really fond of Clarence.

“I do wish he was here, Anne,” she gulped. “It’s such
a long time since I’ve seen him.”

“Have some face cream,” I said soothingly.

Suzanne rubbed a little on the tip of her charming
nose.

“I shall want some more face cream soon too,” she
remarked, “and you can only get this kind in Paris.”
She sighed. “Paris!”

“Suzanne,” I said, “very soon you’ll have had enough
of South Africa and adventure.”

“I should like a really nice hat,” admitted Suzanne
wistfully. “Shall I come with you to meet Guy Pagett
to-morrow?”

“I prefer to go alone. He’d be shyer speaking before
two of us.”

So it came about that I was standing in the doorway
of the hotel on the following afternoon, struggling with a
recalcitrant parasol that refused to go up, whilst Suzanne
lay peacefully on her bed with a book and a basket of
fruit.

According to the hotel porter, the train was on its good
behaviour to-day and would be almost on time, though he
was extremely doubtful whether it would ever get through
to Johannesburg. The line had been blown up, so he
solemnly assured me. It sounded cheerful!

The train drew in just ten minutes late. Everybody
tumbled out on the platform and began walking up and
down feverishly. I had no difficulty in espying Pagett.
I accosted him eagerly. He gave his usual nervous start
at seeing me—somewhat accentuated this time.

“Dear me, Miss Beddingfeld, I understood that you
had disappeared.”

“I have reappeared again,” I told him solemnly. “And
how are you, Mr. Pagett?”

“Very well, thank you—looking forward to taking up
my work again with Sir Eustace.”

“Mr. Pagett,” I said, “there is something I want to
ask you. I hope that you won’t be offended, but a lot
hangs on it, more than you can possibly guess. I want to
know what you were doing at Marlow on the 8th of January
last?”

He started violently.

“Really, Miss Beddingfeld—I—indeed——”

“You were there, weren’t you?”

“I—for reasons of my own I was in the neighbourhood,
yes.”

“Won’t you tell me what those reasons were?”

“Sir Eustace has not already told you?”

“Sir Eustace? Does he know?”

“I am almost sure that he does. I hoped he had not
recognized me, but from the hints he has let drop, and his
remarks, I fear it is only too certain. In any case, I
meant to make a clean breast of the matter and offer him
my resignation. He is a peculiar man, Miss Beddingfeld,
with an abnormal sense of humour. It seems to amuse
him to keep me on tenter-hooks. All the time, I dare
say, he was perfectly well aware of the true facts. Possibly
he has known them for years.”

I hoped that sooner or later I should be able to understand
what Pagett was talking about. He went on fluently:

“It is difficult for a man of Sir Eustace’s standing to
put himself in my position. I know that I was in the
wrong, but it seemed a harmless deception. I would have
thought it better taste on his part to have tackled me
outright—instead of indulging in covert jokes at my expense.”

A whistle blew, and the people began to surge back into
the train.

“Yes, Mr. Pagett,” I broke in, “I’m sure I quite agree
with all you’re saying about Sir Eustace. But why did
you go to Marlow?”

“It was wrong of me, but natural under the circumstances—yes,
I still feel natural under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” I cried desperately.

For the first time Pagett seemed to recognize that I
was asking him a question. His mind detached itself
from the peculiarities of Sir Eustace and his own justification
and came to rest on me.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Beddingfeld,” he said stiffly,
“but I fail to see your concern in the matter.”

He was back in the train now, leaning down to speak
to me. I felt desperate. What could one do with a man
like that?

“Of course, if it’s so dreadful that you’d be ashamed
to speak of it to me——” I began spitefully.

At last I had found the right stop. Pagett stiffened and
flushed.

“Dreadful? Ashamed? I don’t understand you.”

“Then tell me.”

In three short sentences he told me. At last I knew
Pagett’s secret! It was not in the least what I expected.

I walked slowly back to the hotel. There a wire was
handed to me. I tore it open. It contained full and
definite instructions for me to proceed forthwith to Johannesburg,
or rather to a station this side of Johannesburg,
where I should be met by a car. It was signed, not
Andy, but Harry.

I sat down in a chair to do some very serious thinking.

CHAPTER XXXI

Pagett has arrived. He is in a blue funk of course.
Suggested at once that we should go off to Pretoria.
Then, when I had told him kindly but firmly that
we were going to remain here, he went to the other extreme,
wished he had his rifle here, and began bucking
about some bridge he guarded during the Great War.
A railway bridge at Little Puddecombe junction, or something
of that sort.

I soon cut that short by telling him to unpack the big
typewriter. I thought that that would keep him employed
for some time, because the typewriter was sure to
have gone wrong—it always does—and he would have to
take it somewhere to be mended. But I had forgotten
Pagett’s powers of being in the right.

“I’ve already unpacked all the cases, Sir Eustace. The
typewriter is in perfect condition.”

“What do you mean—all the cases?”

“The two small cases as well.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be so officious, Pagett. Those
small cases were no business of yours. They belong to
Mrs. Blair.”

Pagett looked crestfallen. He hates to make a mistake.

“So you can just pack them up again neatly,” I continued.
“After that you can go out and look around you.
Jo’burg will probably be a heap of smoking ruins by to-morrow,
so it may be your last chance.”

I thought that that would get rid of him successfully
for the morning, at any rate.

“There is something I want to say to you when you
have the leisure, Sir Eustace.”

“I haven’t got it now,” I said hastily. “At this minute
I have absolutely no leisure whatsoever.”

Pagett retired.

“By the way,” I called after him, “what was there in
those cases of Mrs. Blair’s?”

“Some fur rugs, and a couple of fur—hats, I think.”

“That’s right,” I assented. “She bought them on the
train. They are hats—of a kind—though I hardly wonder
at your not recognizing them. I dare say she’s going
to wear one of them at Ascot. What else was
there?”

“Some rolls of films and some baskets—a lot of baskets——”

“There would be,” I assured him. “Mrs. Blair is the
kind of woman who never buys less than a dozen or so of
anything.”

“I think that’s all, Sir Eustace, except some miscellaneous
odds and ends, a motor-veil and some odd gloves—that
sort of thing.”

“If you hadn’t been a born idiot, Pagett, you would
have seen from the start that those couldn’t possibly be
my belongings.”

“I thought some of them might belong to Miss Pettigrew.”

“Ah, that reminds me—what do you mean by picking
me out such a doubtful character as a secretary?”

And I told him about the searching cross-examination
I had been put through. Immediately I was sorry, I saw
a glint in his eye that I knew only too well. I changed
the conversation hurriedly. But it was too late. Pagett
was on the war-path.

He next 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 horse-play. 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 lunch-time. 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 some one 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.”