The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie [82]
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 tomorrow 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 too 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 commented.
‘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 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