The Man in the Brown Suit

bona
fides
was now quite established. “And perhaps I might get it cheap—in the circumstances.”
A master touch that, I thought.
“Well, it’s possible. There’s no pretending that it will be easy to let now—servants and
all that, you know. If you like the place after you’ve seen it, I should advise you to make an
offer. Shall I write you out an order?”
“If you please.”
A quarter of an hour later I was at the lodge of the Mill House. In answer to my knock, the
door flew open and a tall middle-aged woman literally bounced out.
“Nobody can go into the house, do you hear that? Fairly sick of you reporters, I am. Sir

---

Eustace’s orders are—”
“I understood the house was to let,” I said freezingly, holding out my order. “Of course, if
it’s already taken—”
“Oh, I’m sure I beg your pardon, miss. I’ve been fairly pestered with these newspaper
people. Not a minute’s peace. No, the house isn’t let—nor likely to be now.”
“Are the drains wrong?” I asked in an anxious whisper.
“Oh, Lord, miss, the 
drains
is all right! But surely you’ve heard about that foreign lady as
was done to death here?”
“I believe I did read something about it in the papers,” I said carelessly.
My indifference piqued the good woman. If I had betrayed any interest, she would
probably have closed up like an oyster. As it was she positively bridled.
“I should say you did, miss! It’s been in all the newspapers. The 
Daily Budget
’s out still
to catch the man who did it. It seems, according to them, as our police are no good at all.
Well I hope they’ll get him—although a nice-looking fellow he was and no mistake. A kind
of soldierly look about him—ah, well, I dare say he’d been wounded in the war, and
sometimes they go a bit queer aftwards; my sister’s boy did. Perhaps she’d used him bad—
they’re a bad lot, those foreigners. Though she was a fine-looking woman. Stood there
where you’re standing now.”
“Was she dark or fair?” I ventured. “You can’t tell from these newspaper portraits.”
“Dark hair, and a very white face—too white for nature, I thought—had her lips reddened
something cruel. I don’t like to see it—a little powder now and then is quite another thing.”
We were conversing like old friends now. I put another question.
“Did she seem nervous or upset at all?”
“Not a bit. She was smiling to herself, quiet like, as though she was amused at something.
That’s why you could have knocked me down with a feather when, the next afternoon, those
people came running out calling for the police and saying there’d been murder done. I shall
never get over it, and as for setting foot in that house after dark I wouldn’t do it, not if it was
ever so. Why, I wouldn’t even stay here at the lodge, if Sir Eustace hadn’t been down on his
bended knees to me.”
“I thought Sir Eustace Pedler was at Cannes?”
“So he was, miss. He came back to England when he heard the news, and, as to the
bended knees, that was a figure of speech, his secretary, Mr. Pagett, having offered us
double pay to stay on, and, as my John says, money is money nowadays.”
I concurred heartily with John’s by no means original remarks.

---

“The young man now,” said Mrs. James, reverting suddenly to a former point in the
conversation. “He 
was
upset. His eyes, light eyes, they were, I noticed them particular, was
all shining. Excited, 
I
thought. But I never dreamt of anything being wrong. Not even when
he came out again looking all queer.”
“How long was he in the house?”
“Oh, not long, a matter of five minutes maybe.”
“How tall was he, do you think? About six foot?”
“I should say so maybe.”
“He was clean-shaven, you say?”
“Yes, miss—not even one of these toothbrush moustaches.”
“Was his chin at all shiny?” I asked on a sudden impulse.
Mrs. James stared at me with awe.
“Well, now you come to mention it, miss, it 
was
. However did you know?”
“It’s a curious thing, but murderers often have shiny chins,” I explained wildly.
Mrs. James accepted the statement in all good faith.
“Really, now, miss. I never heard that before.”
“You didn’t notice what kind of head he had, I suppose?”
“Just the ordinary kind, miss. I’ll fetch you the keys, shall I?”
I accepted them, and went on my way to the Mill House. My reconstructions so far I
considered good. All along I had realized that the differences between the man Mrs. James
had described and my Tube “doctor” were those of nonessentials. An overcoat, a beard,
gold-rimmed eyeglasses. The “doctor” had appeared middle-aged, but I remembered that he
had stooped over the body like a comparatively young man. There had been a suppleness
which told of young joints.
The victim of the accident (the Moth Ball man, as I called him to myself ) and the foreign
woman, Mrs. de Castina, or whatever her real name was, had had an assignation to meet at
the Mill House. That was how I pieced the thing together. Either because they feared they
were being watched or for some other reason, they chose the rather ingenious method of
both getting an order to view the same house. Thus their meeting there might have the
appearance of pure chance.
That the Moth Ball man had suddenly caught sight of the “doctor,” and that the meeting
was totally unexpected and alarming to him, was another fact of which I was fairly sure.
What had happened next? The “doctor” had removed his disguise and followed the woman
to Marlow. But it was possible that had he removed it rather hastily traces of spirit gum

---

might still linger on his chin. Hence my question to Mrs. James.
Whilst occupied with my thoughts I had arrived at the low old-fashioned door of the Mill
House. Unlocking it with the key, I passed inside. The hall was low and dark, the place
smelt forlorn and mildewy. In spite of myself, I shivered. Did the woman who had come
here “smiling to herself” a few days ago feel no chill of premonition as she entered this
house? I wondered. Did the smile fade from her lips, and did a nameless dread close round
her heart? Or had she gone upstairs, smiling still, unconscious of the doom that was so soon
to overtake her? My heart beat a little faster. Was the house really empty? Was doom
waiting for me in it also? For the first time, I understood the meaning of the much-used
word, “atmosphere.” There was an atmosphere in this house, an atmosphere of cruelty, of
menace, of evil.

---

Seven
S
haking off the feelings that oppressed me, I went quickly upstairs. I had no difficulty in
finding the room of the tragedy. On the day the body was discovered it had rained heavily,
and large muddy boots had trampled the uncarpeted floor in every direction. I wondered if
the murderer had left any footmarks the previous day. It was likely that the police would be
reticent on the subject if he had, but on consideration I decided it was unlikely. The weather
had been fine and dry.
There was nothing of interest about the room. It was almost square with two big bay
windows, plain white walls and a bare floor, the boards being stained round the edges
where the carpet had ceased. I searched it carefully, but there was not so much as a pin
lying about. The gifted young detective did not seem likely to discover a neglected clue.
I had brought with me a pencil and notebook. There did not seem much to note, but I duly
dotted down a brief sketch of the room to cover my disappointment at the failing of my
quest. As I was in the act of returning the pencil to my bag, it slipped from my fingers and
rolled along the floor.
The Mill House was really old, and the floors were very uneven. The pencil rolled
steadily, with increasing momentum, until it came to rest under one of the windows. In the
recess of each window there was a broad window seat, underneath which there was a
cupboard. My pencil was lying right against the cupboard door. The cupboard was shut, but
it suddenly occurred to me that if it had been open my pencil would have rolled inside. I
opened the door, and my pencil immediately rolled in and sheltered modestly in the farthest
corner. I retrieved it, noting as I did so that owing to lack of light and the peculiar formation
of the cupboard one could not see it, but had to feel for it. Apart from my pencil the
cupboard was empty, but being thorough by nature I tried the one under the opposite
window.
At first sight, it looked as though that also was empty, but I grubbed about perseveringly,
and was rewarded by feeling my hand close on a hard paper cylinder which lay in a sort of
trough, or depression, in the far corner of the cupboard. As soon as I had it in my hand, I
knew what it was. A roll of Kodak films. Here was a find!
I realized, of course, that these films might very well be an old roll belonging to Sir
Eustace Pedler which had rolled in here and had not been found when the cupboard was
emptied. But I did not think so. The red paper was far too fresh-looking. It was just as dusty
as it would have been had it lain there for two or three days—that is to say, since the
murder. Had it been there for any length of time, it would have been thickly-coated.

---

Who had dropped it? The woman or the man? I remembered that the contents of her
handbag had appeared to be intact. If it had been jerked open in the struggle and the roll of
films had fallen out, surely some of the loose money would have been scattered about also?
No, it was not the woman who had dropped the films.
I sniffed suddenly and suspiciously. Was the smell of mothballs becoming an obsession
with me? I could swear that the roll of films smelt of it also. I held them under my nose.
They had, as usual, a strong smell of their own, but apart from that I could clearly detect the
odour I disliked so much. I soon found the cause. A minute thread of cloth had caught on a
rough edge of the centre wood, and that shred was strongly impregnated with mothballs. At
some time or another the films had been carried in the overcoat pocket of the man who was
killed in the Tube. Was it he who had dropped them here? Hardly. His movements were all
accounted for.
No, it was the other man, the “doctor.” He had taken the films when he had taken the
paper. It was he who had dropped them here during his struggle with the woman.
I had got my clue! I would have the roll developed, and then I would have further
developments to work upon.
Very elated, I left the house, returned the keys to Mrs. James and made my way as quickly
as possible to the station. On the way back to town, I took out my paper and studied it
afresh. Suddenly the figures took on a new significance. Suppose they were a date? 17 1 22.
The 17th of January, 1922. Surely that must be it! Idiot that I was not to have thought of it
before. But in that case I 
must
find out the whereabouts of Kilmorden Castle, for today was
actually the 14th. Three days. Little enough—almost hopeless when one had no idea of
where to look!
It was too late to hand in my roll today. I had to hurry home to Kensington so as not to be
late for dinner. It occurred to me that there was an easy way of verifying whether some of
my conclusions were correct. I asked Mr. Flemming whether there had been a camera
amongst the dead man’s belongings. I knew that he had taken an interest in the case and was
conversant with all the details.
To my surprise and annoyance he replied that there had been no camera. All Carton’s
effects had been gone over very carefully in the hopes of finding something that might throw
light upon his state of mind. He was positive that there had been no photographic apparatus
of any kind.
That was rather a setback to my theory. If he had no camera, why should he be carrying a
roll of films?
I set out early next morning to take my precious roll to be developed. I was so fussy that I
went all the way to Regent Street to the big Kodak place. I handed it in and asked for a print
of each film. The man finished stacking together a heap of films packed in yellow tin

---

cylinders for the tropics, and picked up my roll.
He looked at me.
“You’ve made a mistake, I think,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m sure I haven’t.”
“You’ve given me the wrong roll. This is an