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

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 percent 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 percent 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 anyone who was at once so practical and so passionate. I shall never care for anyone 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!”

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 forever 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 anyone 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