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

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 today⁠—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. Everyone 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 paean 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