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!