The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie [47]
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–goodbye.’
‘Goodbye.’
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 Hampsley 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 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 have never 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 facecream. 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