Page:ManInBrownSuit-Christie.pdf/212

Rh that I would accost him then and there. You know what happened. In the sudden shock of seeing a man whom he imagined far away in South Africa, he lost his head and stepped back upon the line. He was always a coward. Under the pretext of being a doctor, I managed to search his pockets. There was a wallet with some notes in it and one or two unimportant letters, there was a roll of films—which I must have dropped somewhere later—and there was a piece of paper with an appointment made on it for the 22nd on the Kilmorden Castle. In my haste to get away before any one detained me, I dropped that also, but fortunately I remembered the figures.

"I hurried to the nearest cloak-room and hastily removed my make-up. I did not want to be laid by the heels for picking a dead man's pocket. Then I retraced my steps to the Hyde Park Hotel. Nadina was still having lunch. I needn't describe in detail how I followed her down to Marlow. She went into the house, and I spoke to the woman at the lodge, pretending that I was with her. Then I, too, went in."

He stopped. There was a tense silence.

"You will believe me, Anne, won't you? I swear before God that what I am going to say is true. I went into the house after her with something very like murder in my heart—and she was dead! I found her in that first-floor room—God! It was horrible. Dead—and I was not more than three minutes behind her. And there was no sign of any one else in the house! Of course I realized at once the terrible position I was in. By one master-stroke the blackmailed had rid himself of the blackmailer, and at the same time had provided a victim to whom the crime would be ascribed. The hand of the 'Colonel' was very plain. For the second time I was to be his victim. Fool that I had been to walk into the trap so easily.

"I hardly know what I did next. I managed to go out