Page:ManInBrownSuit-Christie.pdf/50

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THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT
41

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 a 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 non-essentials. 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