Page:ManInBrownSuit-Christie.pdf/147

138 Mr. Chichester!

Now I began to make out the words.

"All the same, it is dangerous. Suppose her friends come after her?"

It was the big man speaking. Chichester answered him. He had dropped his clerical voice entirely. No wonder I had not recognized it.

"All bluff. They haven't an idea where she is."

"She spoke very positively."

"I dare say. I've looked into the matter, and we've nothing to fear. Anyway, it's the 'Colonel's' orders. You don't want to go against them, I suppose?"

The Dutchman ejaculated something in his own language. I judged it to be a hasty disclaimer.

"But why not knock her on the head?" he growled. "It would be simple. The boat is all ready. She could be taken out to sea?"

"Yes," said Chichester meditatively. "That is what I should do. She knows too much, that is certain. But the 'Colonel' is a man who likes to play a lone hand—though no one else must do so." Something in his own words seemed to awaken a memory that annoyed him. "He wants information of some kind from this girl."

He had paused before the information, and the Dutchman was quick to catch him up.

"Information?"

"Something of the kind."

"Diamonds," I said to myself.

"And now," continued Chichester, "give me the lists."

For a long time their conversation was quite incomprehensible to me. It seemed to deal with large quantities of vegetables. Dates were mentioned, prices, and various names of places which I did not know. It was quite half an hour before they had finished their checking and counting.