The Man in the Brown Suit. Агата Кристи
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at the beginning of the following week’s episode. I used to come out with my head in a delirious whirl—and then I would get home and find a notice from the Gas Company threatening to cut us off if the outstanding account was not paid!
And yet, though I did not suspect it, every moment was bringing adventure nearer to me.
It is possible that there are many people in the world who have never heard of the finding of an antique skull at the Broken Hill Mine in Northern Rhodesia. I came down one morning to find Papa excited to the point of apoplexy. He poured out the whole story to me.
‘You understand, Anne? There are undoubtedly certain resemblances to the Java skull, but superficial—superficial only. No, here we have what I have always maintained—the ancestral form of the Neanderthal race. You grant that the Gibraltar skull is the most primitive of the Neanderthal skulls found? Why? The cradle of the race was in Africa. They passed to Europe—’
‘Not marmalade on kippers, Papa,’ I said hastily, arresting my parent’s absent-minded hand. ‘Yes, you were saying?’
‘They passed to Europe on—’
Here he broke down with a bad fit of choking, the result of an immoderate mouthful of kipper bones.
‘But we must start at once,’ he declared, as he rose to his feet at the conclusion of the meal. ‘There is no time to be lost. We must be on the spot—there are doubtless incalculable finds to be found in the neighbourhood. I shall be interested to note whether the implements are typical of the Mousterian period—there will be the remains of the primitive ox, I should say, but not those of the woolly rhinoceros. Yes, a little army will be starting soon. We must get ahead of them. You will write to Cook’s today, Anne?’
‘What about money, Papa?’ I hinted delicately.
He turned a reproachful eye upon me.
‘Your point of view always depresses me, my child. We must not be sordid. No, no, in the cause of science one must not be sordid.’
‘I feel Cook’s might be sordid, Papa.’
Papa looked pained.
‘My dear Anne, you will pay them in ready money.’
‘I haven’t got any ready money.’
Papa looked thoroughly exasperated.
‘My child, I really cannot be bothered with these vulgar money details. The bank—I had something from the Manager yesterday, saying I had twenty-seven pounds.’
‘That’s your overdraft, I fancy.’
‘Ah, I have it! Write to my publishers.’
I acquiesced doubtfully, Papa’s books bringing in more glory than money. I liked the idea of going to Rhodesia immensely. ‘Stern silent men,’ I murmured to myself in an ecstasy. Then something in my parent’s appearance struck me as unusual.
‘You have odd boots on, Papa,’ I said. ‘Take off the brown one and put on the other black one. And don’t forget your muffler. It’s a very cold day.’
In a few minutes Papa stalked off, correctly booted and well mufflered.
He returned late that evening, and, to my dismay, I saw his muffler and overcoat were missing.
‘Dear me, Anne, you are quite right. I took them off to go into the cavern. One gets so dirty there.’
I nodded feelingly, remembering an occasion when Papa had returned literally plastered from head to foot with rich Pleiocene clay.
Our principal reason for settling in Little Hampsley had been the neighbourhood of Hampsley Cavern, a buried cave rich in deposits of the Aurignacian culture. We had a tiny museum in the village, and the curator and Papa spent most of their days messing about underground and bringing to light portions of woolly rhinoceros and cave bear.
Papa coughed badly all the evening, and the following morning I saw he had a temperature and sent for the doctor.
Poor Papa, he never had a chance. It was double pneumonia. He died four days later.
Everyone 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 him in return. No, there had not been love between us, but we had belonged together, and I had looked after him, and had secretly admired his learning and his uncompromising devotion to science. And it hurt me that Papa should have died just when the interest of life was at its height for him. I should have felt happier if I could have buried him in a cave, with paintings of reindeer and flint implements, but the force of public opinion constrained a neat tomb (with marble slab) in our hideous local churchyard. The vicar’s consolations, though well meant, did not console me in the least.
It took some time to dawn upon me that the thing I had always longed for—freedom—was at last mine. I was an orphan, and practically penniless, but free. At the same time I realized the extraordinary kindness of all these good people. The vicar did his best to persuade me that his wife was in urgent need of a companion help. Our tiny local library suddenly made up its mind to have an assistant librarian. Finally, the doctor called upon me, and after making various ridiculous excuses for failing to send in a proper bill, he hummed and hawed a good deal and suddenly suggested I should marry him.
I was very much astonished. The doctor was nearer forty than thirty and a round, tubby little man. He was not at all like the hero of ‘The Perils of Pamela’, and even less like a stern and silent Rhodesian. I reflected a minute and then asked why he wanted to marry me. That seemed to fluster him a good deal, and he murmured that a wife was a great help to a general practitioner. The position seemed even more unromantic than before, and yet something in me urged towards its acceptance. Safety, that was what I was being offered. Safety—and a Comfortable Home. Thinking it over now, I believe I did the little man an injustice. He was honestly in love with me, but a mistaken delicacy prevented him from pressing his suit on those lines. Anyway, my love of romance rebelled.
‘It’s extremely kind of you,’ I said. ‘But it’s impossible. I could never marry a man unless I loved him madly.’
‘You don’t think—?’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said firmly.
He sighed.
‘But, my dear child, what do you propose to do?’
‘Have adventures and see the world,’ I replied, without the least hesitation.
‘Miss Anne, you are very much of a child still. You don’t understand—’
‘The practical difficulties? Yes, I do, doctor. I’m not a sentimental schoolgirl—I’m a hard-headed mercenary shrew! You’d know it if you married me!’
‘I wish you would reconsider—’
‘I can’t.’
He sighed again.
‘I have another proposal to make. An aunt of mine who lives in Wales is in want of a young lady to help her. How would that suit you?’
‘No, doctor, I’m going to London. If things happen anywhere, they happen in London. I shall keep my eyes open and, you’ll see, something will turn up! You’ll hear of me next in China or Timbuctoo.’
My next visitor was Mr Flemming, Papa’s London solicitor. He came down specially from town to see me. An ardent anthropologist himself, he was a great admirer of Papa’s work. He was a tall, spare man with a thin face and grey hair. He rose to meet me as I entered the room and taking both my hands in his, patted them affectionately.
‘My poor child,’ he said. ‘My poor, poor child.’
Without conscious hypocrisy, I found