فصل بیست و دوم

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Anne’s Story

I enjoyed the journey up to Rhodesia. First the wonderful scenery of the Hex River, then the wild Karoo, a hot, dusty desert of stones and rocks - and finally, in Bechuanaland, the delightful wooden animals the natives brought to sell whenever the train stopped. Suzanne and I began at once to buy a collection of these - it was very enjoyable.

Suzanne and I had talked half the night, making our plans. We had decided that as Harry Rayburn was thought of as ‘the Man in the Brown Suit’ - through no fault of mine - I could help him best by seeming to be against him.

The solution was the Daily Budget. As far as I knew, the dead woman was still not known. I started by sending a telegram to Lord Nasby, the newspaper owner, suggesting that the dead woman was the Russian dancer ‘Nadina’ who had been delighting Paris for so long.

The Daily Budget had its biggest story ever. ‘Victim of the Mill House Murder identified by our special reporter’, and so on. ‘Our reporter travels with the murderer. The Man in the Brown Suit. What he’s really like.’

I received approval and full instructions by telegram at Bulawayo. I was reporting for the Daily Budget, and I had a private word of praise from Lord Nasby. My job was to catch the murderer!