The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie (free novel 24 TXT) 📗

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 psychoanalyst, 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.