CHAPTER XXII

_(Extract from the diary of Sir Eustace Pedler)_

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. At one minute

I have no secretaries, at another I have too many. At the present

minute I am journeying to Rhodesia with a pack of women. Race goes

off with the two best-looking, of course, and leaves me with the

dud. That is what always happens to me—and, after all, this is _my_

private car, not Race’s.

Also Anne Beddingfeld is accompanying me to Rhodesia on the pretext

of being my temporary secretary. But all this afternoon she has

been out on the observation platform with Race exclaiming at the

beauty of the Hex River Pass. It is true that I told her her

principal duty would be to hold my hand. But she isn’t even doing

that. Perhaps she is afraid of Miss Pettigrew. I don’t blame her

if so. There is nothing attractive about Miss Pettigrew—she is a

repellent female with large feet, more like a man than a woman.

There is something very mysterious about Anne Beddingfeld. She

jumped on board the train at the last minute, puffing like a

steam-engine for all the world as though she’d been running a

race—and yet Pagett told me that he’d seen her off to Durban last

night! Either Pagett has been drinking again or else the girl must

have an astral body.

And she never explains. Nobody ever explains. Yes, “Secretaries I

have had.” No. 1, a murderer fleeing from justice. No. 2, a secret

drinker who carries on disreputable intrigues in Italy. No. 3, a

beautiful girl who possesses the useful faculty of being in two

places at once. No. 4, Miss Pettigrew, who, I have no doubt, is

really a particularly dangerous crook in disguise! Probably one of

Pagett’s Italian friends that he has palmed off on me. I shouldn’t

wonder if the world found some day that it had been grossly deceived

by Pagett. On the whole, I think Rayburn was the best of the bunch.

He never worried me or got in my way. Guy Pagett has had the

impertinence to have the stationery trunk put in here. None of us

can move without falling over it.

I went out on the observation platform just now, expecting my

appearance to be greeted with hails of delight. Both the women were

listening spellbound to one of Race’s travellers’ tales. I shall

label this car—not “Sir Eustace Pedler and Party,” but “Colonel

Race and Harem.”

Then Mrs. Blair must needs begin taking silly photographs. Every

time we went round a particularly appalling curve, as we climbed

higher and higher, she snapped at the engine.

“You see the point,” she cried delightedly. “It must be some curve

if you can photograph the front part of the train from the back,

and with the mountain background it will look awfully dangerous.”

I pointed out to her that no one could possibly tell it had been

taken from the back of the train. She looked at me pityingly.

“I shall write underneath it: ‘Taken from the train. Engine going

round a curve.’”

“You could write that under any snapshot of a train,” I said. Women

never think of these simple things.

“I’m glad we’ve come up here in daylight,” cried Anne Beddingfeld.

“I shouldn’t have seen this if I’d gone last night to Durban,

should I?”

“No,” said Colonel Race, smiling. “You’d have waked up to-morrow

morning to find yourself in the Karoo, a hot, dusty desert of

stones and rocks.”

“I’m glad I changed my mind,” said Anne, sighing contentedly, and

looking round.

It was rather a wonderful sight. The great mountains all around,

through which we turned and twisted and laboured ever steadily

upwards.

“Is this the best train in the day to Rhodesia?” asked Anne

Beddingfeld.

“In the day?” laughed Race. “Why, my dear Miss Anne, there are only

three trains a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Do you

realize that you don’t arrive at the Falls until Saturday next?”

“How well we shall know each other by that time,” said Mrs. Blair

maliciously. “How long are you going to stay at the Falls, Sir

Eustace?”

“That depends,” I said cautiously.

“On what?”

“On how things go at Johannesburg. My original idea was to stay a

couple of days or so at the Falls—which I’ve never seen, though

this is my third visit to Africa—and then go on to Jo’burg and

study the conditions of things on the Rand. At home, you know, I

pose as being an authority on South African politics. But from all

I hear, Jo’burg will be a particularly unpleasant place to visit

in about a week’s time. I don’t want to study conditions in the

midst of a raging revolution.”

Race smiled in a rather superior manner.

“I think your fears are exaggerated, Sir Eustace. There will be no

great danger in Jo’burg.”

The women immediately looked at him in the “What a brave hero you

are” manner. It annoyed me intensely. I am every bit as brave as

Race—but I lack the figure. These long, lean, brown men have it

all their own way.

“I suppose you’ll be there,” I said coldly.

“Very possibly. We might travel together.”

“I’m not sure that I shan’t stay on at the Falls a bit,” I answered

non-committally. Why is Race so anxious that I should go to Jo’burg?

He’s got his eye on Anne, I believe. “What are your plans, Miss

Anne?”

“That depends,” she replied demurely, copying me.

“I thought you were my secretary,” I objected.

“Oh, but I’ve been cut out. You’ve been holding Miss Pettigrew’s

hand all the afternoon.”

“Whatever I’ve been doing, I can swear I’ve not been doing that,”

I assured her.

_Thursday night._

We have just left Kimberley. Race was made to tell the story of

the diamond robbery all over again. Why are women so excited by

anything to do with diamonds?

At last Anne Beddingfeld has shed her veil of mystery. It seems

that she’s a newspaper correspondent. She sent an immense cable

from De Aar this morning. To judge by the jabbering that went on

nearly all night in Mrs. Blair’s cabin, she must have been reading

aloud all her special articles for years to come.

It seems that all along she’s been on the track of “The Man in the

Brown Suit.” Apparently she didn’t spot him on the _Kilmorden_—in

fact, she hardly had the chance, but she’s now very busy cabling

home: “How I journeyed out with the Murderer,” and inventing highly

fictitious stories of “What he said to me,” etc. I know how these

things are done. I do them myself, in my Reminiscences when Pagett

will let me. And of course one of Nasby’s efficient staff will

brighten up the details still more, so that when it appears in the

_Daily Budget_ Rayburn won’t recognize himself.

The girl’s clever, though. All on her own, apparently, she’s

ferreted out the identity of the woman who was killed in my house.

She was a Russian dancer called Nadina. I asked Anne Beddingfeld

if she was sure of this. She replied that it was merely a

deduction—quite in the Sherlock Holmes manner. However, I gather

that she had cabled it home to Nasby as a proved fact. Women have

these intuitions—I’ve no doubt that Anne Beddingfeld is perfectly

right in her guess—but to call it a deduction is absurd.

How she ever got on the staff of the _Daily Budget_ is more than

I can imagine. But she is the kind of young woman who does these

things. Impossible to withstand her. She is full of coaxing ways

that mask an invincible determination. Look how she has got into

my private car!

I am beginning to have an inkling why. Race said something about

the police suspecting that Rayburn would make for Rhodesia. He

might just have got off by Monday’s train. They telegraphed all

along the line, I presume, and no one of his description was found,

but that says little. He’s an astute young man and he knows Africa.

He’s probably exquisitely disguised as an old Kafir woman—and the

simple police continue to look for a handsome young man with a

scar, dressed in the height of European fashion. I never did quite

swallow that scar.

Anyway, Anne Beddingfeld is on his track. She wants the glory of

discovering him for herself and the _Daily Budget._ Young women

are very cold-blooded nowadays. I hinted to her that it was an

unwomanly action. She laughed at me. She assured me that did she

run him to earth her fortune was made. Race doesn’t like it,

either, I can see. Perhaps Rayburn is on this train. If so, we may

all be murdered in our beds. I said so to Mrs. Blair—but she seemed

quite to welcome the idea, and remarked that if I were murdered it

would be really a terrific scoop for Anne! A scoop for Anne indeed!

To-morrow we shall be going through Bechuanaland. The dust will be

atrocious. Also at every station, little Kafir children come and

sell you quaint wooden animals that they carve themselves. Also

mealie bowls and baskets. I am rather afraid that Mrs. Blair may

run amok. There is a primitive charm about these toys that I feel

will appeal to her.

_Friday evening._

As I feared. Mrs. Blair and Anne have bought forty-nine wooden

animals!