The Man in the Brown Suit

We 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 thoro...

I had great trouble with Suzanne. She argued, she pleaded, she even wept before she would let me carry out my plan. But in the end I got my own way. She promised to carry out my...

It is most undignified for a heroine to be sea-sick. In books the more it rolls and tosses, the better she likes it. When everybody else is ill, she alone staggers along the dec...

I drove to the hotel. There was no one in the lounge that I knew. I ran upstairs and tapped on Suzanne’s door. Her voice bade me “come in.” When she saw who it was she literally...

“You are right. My real name is Harry Lucas. My father was a retired soldier who came out to farm in Rhodesia. He died when I was in my second year at Cambridge.”

I came to myself slowly and painfully. I was conscious of an aching head and a shooting pain down my left arm when I tried to move, and everything seemed dream-like and unreal....

I got an opportunity of tackling Colonel Race on the following morning. The auction of the sweep had just been concluded, and we walked up and down the deck together.

It reminded me forcibly of Episode III in “The Perils of Pamela.” How often had I not sat in the sixpenny seats, eating a twopenny bar of milk chocolate, and yearning for simila...

Harry listened attentively whilst I recounted all the events that I have narrated in these pages. The thing that bewildered and astonished him most was to find that all along th...

I don’t suppose that as long as I live I shall forget my first sight of Table Mountain. I got up frightfully early and went out on deck. I went right up to the boat deck, which...

I had no further difficulty in carrying out my plans. I found a small hotel in a back street, got a room there, paid a deposit as I had no luggage with me, and went placidly to...

It was on the night of the Fancy Dress dance that I decided that the time had come for me to confide in some one. So far I had played a lone hand and rather enjoyed it. Now sudd...

“Do you mind? It suits you somehow. I’ve called you that in my own mind from the beginning. It’s the gipsy element in you that makes you so different from any one else. I decide...

There is something about the state of things here that is not at all healthy. To use the well-known phrase that I have so often read, we are all living on the edge of a volcano....

I was not summoned to Sir Eustace’s presence until late in the afternoon. Eleven-o’clock tea and a substantial lunch had been served to me in my own apartment, and I felt fortif...

It is an extraordinary thing that I never seem to get any peace. I am a man who likes a quiet life. I like my Club, my rubber of Bridge, a well-cooked meal, a sound wine. I like...

I went home with a feeling of exultation. My scheme had succeeded far better than I could possibly have hoped. Lord Nasby had been positively genial. It only now remained for me...

The only costume that fitted me in the barber’s emporium was that of a Teddy Bear. I don’t mind playing bears with some nice young girls on a winter’s evening in England—but it’...

There is something to be said for life on board ship. It is peaceful. My grey hairs fortunately exempt me from the indignities of bobbing for apples, running up and down the dec...

Every one was very kind to me. Dazed as I was, I appreciated that. I felt no overwhelming grief. Papa had never loved me, I knew that well enough. If he had, I might have loved...

Mrs. Flemming and her friends seemed to me to be supremely uninteresting. They talked for hours of themselves and their children and of the difficulties of getting good milk for...

Everybody has been at me, right and left, to write this story from the great (represented by Lord Nasby) to the small (represented by our late maid of all work, Emily, whom I sa...

Pagett has arrived. He is in a blue funk of course. Suggested at once that we should go off to Pretoria. Then, when I had told him kindly but firmly that we were going to remain...

“Oh, yes, my dear. I’ve seen rough diamonds too often to have any doubts. They’re beauties too, Anne—and some of them are unique, I should say. There’s a history behind these.”

The whole time that I was on board I was conscious of being surrounded by a network of intrigue. To put the lid on everything, Guy Pagett must needs engage in a drunken brawl th...

As I remarked once before, I am essentially a man of peace. I yearn for a quiet life—and that’s just the one thing I don’t seem able to have. I am always in the middle of storms...

Shortly after one o’clock on January 8th, a well-dressed woman with a slight foreign accent had entered the offices of Messrs. Butler and Park, house-agents, in Knightsbridge. S...

I am inclined to abandon my Reminiscences. Instead I shall write a short article entitled “Secretaries I have had.” As regards secretaries, I seem to have fallen under a blight....

She joined me there with the utmost dispatch, heralding her arrival with telegrams sent off _en route._ I was awfully surprised to find that she really was fond of me—I thought...

There was something new and exciting to see every day. First the wonderful scenery of the Hex river valley, then the desolate grandeur of the Karoo, and finally that wonderful s...

I was violently excited. I was sure that I had hit on the right trail at last. One thing was clear, I must not move out of the cabin. The asafœtida had got to be borne. I examin...

Shaking 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 hea...

We were not able to return to Johannesburg that night. The shells were coming over pretty fast, and I gathered that we were now more or less cut off, owing to the rebels having...

“I don’t know that I can make you understand. I was afraid of all that sort of thing—the power and fascination of wealth. I wanted you to care for me just for myself—for the man...

I’m not surprised—not at all. All the time we’ve been talking Paris and frocks I felt that it wasn’t a bit real—that you’d vanish into the blue some day to be married over the t...

In the first heat of indignation I found my next step unexpectedly easy to tackle. I had had a half-formed plan in my head when I went into Scotland Yard. One to be carried out...