Page:ManInBrownSuit-Christie.pdf/159

150 Pagett looked at me coldly.

"She is a proficient shorthand-typist," he said repressively.

We pulled up in front of the station. Here surely he would leave us. I turned with outstretched hand—but no.

"I'll come and see you off. It's just eight o'clock, your train goes in a quarter of an hour."

He gave efficient directions to porters. I stood helpless, not daring to look at Suzanne. The man suspected. He was determined to make sure that I did go by the train. And what could I do? Nothing. I saw myself, in a quarter of an hour's time, steaming out of the station with Pagett planted on the platform waving me adieu. He had turned the tables on me adroitly. His manner towards me had changed, moreover. It was full of an uneasy geniality which sat ill upon him, and which nauseated me. The man was an oily hypocrite. First he tried to murder me, and now he paid me compliments! Did he imagine for one minute that I hadn't recognized him that night on the boat? No, it was a pose, a pose which he forced me to acquiesce in, his tongue in his cheek all the while.

Helpless as a sheep, I moved along under his expert directions. My luggage was piled in my sleeping compartment—I had a two-berth one to myself. It was twelve minutes past eight. In three minutes the train would start.

But Paggett had reckoned without Suzanne.

"It will be a terribly hot journey, Anne," she said suddenly. "Especially going through the Karoo to-morrow. You've got some eau-de-Cologne or lavender water with you, haven't you?"

My cue was plain.