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104 "what has Colonel Race got to do with this? He's in it somewhere."

"You don't think it was mere chance, his telling that story?"

"No, I don't," I said decidedly. "He was watching us all narrowly. You remember, some of the diamonds were recovered, not all. Perhaps these are the missing ones—or perhaps"

"Perhaps what?"

I did not answer directly.

"I should like to know," I said, "what became of the other young man. Not Eardsley but—what was his name?—Lucas!"

"We're getting some light on the thing, anyway. It's the diamonds all these people are after. It must have been to obtain possession of the diamonds that 'The Man in the Brown Suit' killed Nadina."

"He didn't kill her," I said sharply.

"Of course he killed her. Who else could have done so?"

"I don't know. But I'm sure he didn't kill her."

"He went into that house three minutes after her and came out as white as a sheet."

"Because he found her dead."

"But nobody else went in."

"Then the murderer was in the house already, or else he got in some other way. There's no need for him to pass the lodge, he could have climbed over the wall."

Suzanne glanced at me sharply.

"'The Man in the Brown Suit,'" she mused. "Who was he, I wonder? Anyway, he was identical with the 'doctor' in the Tube. He would have had time to remove his make-up and follow the woman to Marlow. She and Carton were to have met there, they both had an order to view the same house, and if they took such elaborate