The Man in the Brown Suit

Twenty-four
W
e arrived at Bulawayo early on Saturday morning. I was disappointed in the place. It
was very hot, and I hated the hotel. Also Sir Eustace was what I can only describe as
thoroughly sulky. I think it was all our wooden animals that annoyed him—especially the
big giraffe. It was a colossal giraffe with an impossible neck, a mild eye and a dejected tail.
It had character. It had charm. A controversy was already arising as to whom it belonged to
—me or Suzanne. We had each contributed a 
tiki
to its purchase. Suzanne advanced the
claims of seniority and the married state, I stuck to the position that I had been the first to
behold its beauty.
In the meantime, I must admit, it occupied a good deal of this three-dimensional space of
ours. To carry forty-nine wooden animals, all of awkward shape, and all of extremely
brittle wood, is somewhat of a problem. Two porters were laden with a bunch of animals
each—and one promptly dropped a ravishing group of ostriches and broke their heads off.
Warned by this, Suzanne and I carried all we could, Colonel Race helped, and I pressed the
big giraffe into Sir Eustace’s arms. Even the correct Miss Pettigrew did not escape, a large
hippopotamus and two black warriors fell to her share. I had a feeling Miss Pettigrew
didn’t like me. Perhaps she fancied I was a bold hussy. Anyway, she avoided me as much as
she could. And the funny thing was, her face seemed vaguely familiar to me, though I
couldn’t quite place it.
We reposed ourselves most of the morning, and in the afternoon we drove out to the
Matopos to see Rhodes’s grave. That is to say, we were to have done so, but at the last
moment Sir Eustace backed out. He was very nearly in as bad a temper as the morning we
arrived at Cape Town—when he bounced the peaches on the floor and they squashed!
Evidently arriving early in the morning at places is bad for his temperament. He cursed the
porters, he cursed the waiter at breakfast, he cursed the whole hotel management, he would
doubtless have liked to curse Miss Pettigrew, who hovered around with her pencil and pad,
but I don’t think even Sir Eustace would have dared to curse Miss Pettigrew. She’s just like
the efficient secretary in a book. I only rescued our dear giraffe just in time. I feel Sir
Eustace would have liked to dash him to the ground.
To return to our expedition, after Sir Eustace had backed out, Miss Pettigrew said she
would remain at home in case he might want her. And at the very last minute Suzanne sent
down a message to say she had a headache. So Colonel Race and I drove off alone.
He is a strange man. One doesn’t notice it so much in a crowd. But when one is alone
with him the sense of his personality seems really almost overpowering. He becomes more

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taciturn, and yet his silence seems to say more than speech might do.
It was so that day that we drove to the Matopos through the soft yellow-brown scrub.
Everything seemed strangely silent—except our car, which I should think was the first Ford
ever made by man! The upholstery of it was torn to ribbons and, though I know nothing
about engines, even I could guess that all was not as it should be in its interior.
By and by the character of the country changed. Great boulders appeared, piled up into
fantastic shapes. I felt suddenly that I had got into a primitive era. Just for a moment
Neanderthal men seemed quite as real to me as they had to Papa. I turned to Colonel Race.
“There must have been giants once,” I said dreamily. “And their children were just like
children are today—they played with handfuls of pebbles, piling them up and knocking them
down, and the more cleverly they balanced them, the better pleased they were. If I were to
give a name to this place I should call it The Country of Giant Children.”
“Perhaps you’re nearer the mark than you know,” said Colonel Race gravely. “Simple,
primitive, big—that is Africa.”
I nodded appreciatively.
“You love it, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yes. But to live in it long—well, it makes one what you would call cruel. One comes to
hold life and death very lightly.”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of Harry Rayburn. He had been like that too. “But not cruel to
weak things?”
“Opinions differ as to what are and are not ‘weak things,’ Miss Anne.”
There was a note of seriousness in his voice which almost startled me. I felt that I knew
very little really of this man at my side.
“I meant children and dogs, I think.”
“I can truthfully say I’ve never been cruel to children or dogs. So you don’t class women
as ‘weak things?’ ”
I considered.
“No, I don’t think I do—though they are, I suppose. That is, they are nowadays. But Papa
always said that in the beginning men and women roamed the world together, equal in
strength—like lions and tigers—”
“And giraffes?” interpolated Colonel Race slyly.
I laughed. Everyone makes fun of that giraffe.
“And giraffes. They were nomadic, you see. It wasn’t till they settled down in
communities, and women did one kind of thing and men another, that women got weak. And

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of course, underneath, one is still the same—one 
feels
the same, I mean—and that is why
women worship physical strength in men: it’s what they once had and have lost.”
“Almost ancestor worship, in fact?”
“Something of the kind.”
“And you really think that’s true? That women worship strength, I mean?”
“I think it’s quite true—if one’s honest. You think you admire moral qualities, but when
you fall in love, you revert to the primitive where the physical is all that counts. But I don’t
think that’s the end; if you lived in primitive conditions it would be all right, but you don’t
—and so, in the end, the other thing wins after all. It’s the things that are apparently
conquered that always do win, isn’t it? They win in the only way that counts. Like what the
Bible says about losing your life and finding it.”
“In the end,” said Colonel Race thoughtfully, “you fall in love—and you fall out of it, is
that what you mean?”
“Not exactly, but you can put it that way if you like.”
“But I don’t think you’ve ever fallen out of love, Miss Anne?”
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted frankly.
“Or fallen in love, either?”
I did not answer.
The car drew up at our destination and brought the conversation to a close. We got out
and began the slow ascent to the World’s View. Not for the first time, I felt a slight
discomfort in Colonel Race’s company. He veiled his thoughts so well behind those
impenetrable black eyes. He frightened me a little. He had always frightened me. I never
knew where I stood with him.
We climbed in silence till we reached the spot where Rhodes lies guarded by giant
boulders. A strange eerie place, far from the haunts of men, that sings a ceaseless paean of
rugged beauty.
We sat there for time in silence. Then descended once more, but diverging slightly from
the path. Sometimes it was a rough scramble and once we came to a sharp slope or rock that
was almost sheer.
Colonel Race went first, then turned to help me.
“Better lift you,” he said suddenly, and swung me off my feet with a quick gesture.
I felt the strength of him as he set me down and released his clasp. A man of iron, with
muscles like taut steel. And again I felt afraid, especially as he did not move aside, but
stood directly in front of me, staring into my face.

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“What are you really doing here, Anne Beddingfeld?” he said abruptly.
“I’m a gipsy seeing the world.”
“Yes, that’s true enough. The newspaper correspondent is only a pretext. You’ve not the
soul of a journalist. You’re out for your own hand—snatching at life. But that’s not all.”
What was he going to make me tell him? I was afraid—afraid. I looked him full in the
face. My eyes can’t keep secrets like his, but they can carry the war into the enemy’s
country.
“What are 
you
really doing here, Colonel Race?” I asked deliberately.
For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer. He was clearly taken aback, though.
At last he spoke, and his words seemed to afford him a grim amusement.
“Pursuing ambition,” he said. “Just that—pursuing ambition. You will remember, Miss
Beddingfeld, that ‘by that sin fell the angels,’ etc.”
“They say,” I said slowly, “that you are really connected with the Government—that you
are in the Secret Service. Is that true?”
Was it my fancy, or did he hesitate for a fraction of a second before he answered?
“I can assure you, Miss Beddingfeld, that I am out here strictly as a private individual
travelling for my own pleasure.”
Thinking the answer over later, it struck me as slightly ambiguous. Perhaps he meant it to
be so.
We rejoined the car in silence. Halfway back to Bulawayo we stopped for tea at a
somewhat primitive structure at the side of the road. The proprietor was digging in the
garden, and seemed annoyed at being disturbed. But he graciously promised to see what he
could do. After an interminable wait, he brought us some stale cakes and some lukewarm
tea. Then disappeared to his garden again.
No sooner had he departed than we were surrounded by cats, six of them all miaowing
piteously at once. The racket was deafening. I offered them some pieces of cake. They
devoured them ravenously. I poured all the milk there was into a saucer and they fought each
other to get it.
“Oh,” I cried indignantly, “they’re starved! It’s wicked. Please, please, order some more
milk and another plate of cake.”
Colonel Race departed silently to do my bidding. The cats had begun miaowing again. He
returned with a big jug of milk and the cats finished it all.
I got up with determination on my face.
“I’m going to take those cats home with us—I shan’t leave them here.”

---

“My dear child, don’t be absurd. You can’t carry six cats as well as fifty wooden animals
round with you.”
“Never mind the wooden animals. These cats are alive. I shall take them back with me.”
“You will do nothing of the kind.” I looked at him resentfully but he went on: “You think
me cruel—but one can’t go through life sentimentalizing over these things. It’s no good
standing out—I shan’t allow you to take them. It’s a primitive country, you know, and I’m
stronger than you.”
I always know when I am beaten. I went down to the car with tears in my eyes.
“They’re probably short of food just today,” he explained consolingly. “That man’s wife
has gone into Bulawayo for stores. So it will be all right. And anyway, you know, the
world’s full of starving cats.”
“Don’t—don’t,” I said fiercely.
“I’m teaching you to realize life as it is. I’m teaching you to be hard and ruthless—like I
am. That’s the secret of strength—and the secret of success.”
“I’d sooner be dead than hard,” I said passionately.
We got into the car and started off. I pulled myself together again slowly. Suddenly, to my
intense astonishment, he took my hand in his.
“Anne,” he said gently, “I want you. Will you marry me?”
I was utterly taken aback.
“Oh, no,” I stammered. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t care for you in that way. I’ve never thought of you like that.”
“I see. Is that the only reason?”
I had to be honest. I owed it him.
“No,” I said, “it is not. You see—I—care for someone else.”
“I see,” he said again. “And was that true at the beginning—when I first saw you—on the