Page:ManInBrownSuit-Christie.pdf/239

230 "Oh, I'm not getting fat, Anne. All the worry I've had about you lately must have worn me to a shred."

"You look particularly well nourished," I said coldly. "I should say you must have put on about half a stone."

"And I don't know that I'm so comfortably married either," continued Suzanne in a melancholy voice. "I've been having the most dreadful cables from Clarence ordering me to come home at once. At last I didn't answer them, and now I haven't heard for over a fortnight."

I'm afraid I didn't take Suzanne's matrimonial troubles very seriously. She will be able to get round Clarence all right when the times comes. I turned the conversation to the subject of the diamonds.

Suzanne looked at me with a dropped jaw.

"I must explain, Anne. You see, as soon as I began to suspect Colonel Race, I was terribly upset about the diamonds. I wanted to stay on at the Falls in case he might have kidnapped you somewhere close by, but didn't know what to do about the diamonds. I was afraid to keep them in my possession"

Suzanne looked round her uneasily, as though she feared the walls might have ears, and then whispered vehemently in my ear.

"A distinctly good idea," I approved. "At the time, that is. It's a bit awkward now. What did Sir Eustace do with the cases?"

"The big ones were sent down to Cape Town. I heard from Pagett before I left the Falls, and he enclosed the receipt for their storage. He's leaving Cape Town to-day, by the by, to join Sir Eustace in Johannesburg."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. "And the small ones, where are they?"

"I suppose Sir Eustace has got them with him."

I turned the matter over in my mind.