The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie [90]
He still spoke quite naturally and unaffectedly. I had to pinch myself to understand that this was all real–that the man in front of me was really that deep-dyed criminal, the ‘Colonel’. I followed things out in my mind.
‘Then it was you who tried to throw me overboard on the Kilmorden,’ I said slowly. ‘It was you that Pagett followed up on deck that night?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I apologize, my dear child, I really do. I always liked you–but you were so confoundedly interfering. I couldn’t have all my plans brought to naught by a chit of a girl.’
‘I think your plan at the Falls was really the cleverest,’ I said, endeavouring to look at the thing in a detached fashion. ‘I would have been ready to swear anywhere that you were in the hotel when I went out. Seeing is believing in future.’
‘Yes, Minks had one of his greatest successes, as Miss Pettigrew, and he can imitate my voice quite creditably.’
‘There is one thing I should like to know.’
‘Yes?’
‘How did you induce Pagett to engage her?’
‘Oh, that was quite simple. She met Pagett in the doorway of the Trade Commissioner’s office or the Chamber of Mines, or wherever it was he went–told him I had ’phoned down in a hurry, and that she had been selected by the Government department in question. Pagett swallowed it like a lamb.’
‘You’re very frank,’ I said, studying him.
‘There’s no earthly reason why I shouldn’t be.’
I didn’t like the sound of that. I hastened to put my own interpretation on it.
‘You believe in the success of this Revolution? You’ve burnt your boats.’
‘For an otherwise intelligent young woman, that’s a singularly unintelligent remark. No, my dear child, I do not believe in this Revolution. I give it a couple of days longer and it will fizzle out ignominiously.’
‘Not one of your successes, in fact?’ I said nastily.
‘Like all women, you’ve no idea of business. The job I took on was to supply certain explosives and arms–heavily paid for–to foment feeling generally, and to incriminate certain people up to the hilt. I’ve carried out my contract with complete success, and I was careful to be paid in advance. I took special care over the whole thing, as I intended it be my last contract before retiring from business. As for burning my boats, as you call it, I simply don’t know what you mean. I’m not the rebel chief, or anything of that kind–I’m a distinguished English visitor, who had the misfortune to go nosing into a certain curioshop–and saw a little more than he was meant to, and so the poor fellow was kidnapped. Tomorrow, or the day after, when circumstances permit, I shall be found tied up somewhere, in a pitiable state of terror and starvation.’
‘Ah!’ I said slowly. ‘But what about me?’
‘That’s just it,’ said Sir Eustace softly. ‘What about you? I’ve got you here–I don’t want to rub it in in any way–but I’ve got you here very neatly. The question is, what am I going to do with you? The simplest way of disposing of you–and, I may add, the pleasantest to myself–is the way of marriage. Wives can’t accuse their husbands, you know, and I’d rather like a pretty young wife to hold my hand and glance at me out of liquid eyes–don’t flash them at me so! You quite frighten me. I see that the plan does not commend itself to you?’
‘It does not.’
Sir Eustace sighed.
‘A pity! But I am no Adelphi villain. The usual trouble, I suppose. You love another, as the books say.’
‘I love another.’
‘I thought as much–first I thought it was that long-legged, pompous ass, Race, but I suppose it’s the young hero who fished you out of the Falls that night. Women have no taste.