The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)

Cast of Characters

Anne Beddingfeld
Sir Eustace Pedlar
Nadina
The Colonel
Colonel Race
Suzanne Blair
Guy Pagett
Harry Rayburn
Rev. Edward Chichester

The Plot

Anne Beddingfeld, the hero of this novel, is a recently orphaned young woman yearning for adventure. She doesn't have to wait too long. As Anne waits for a tram on the platform of the Hyde Park Corner tube station, she sees a small, thin, bearded man fall to his death.

Anne, watching from the side, realizes that the man who checks the body is not a doctor as he claims to be. She finds a message "17.122 Kilmorden Castle" that the doctor had taken from a pocket of the dead man and then accidentally dropped. Only she connects this "doctor" with the Man in the Brown Suit who is wanted for the murder of a woman in the unoccupied Mill House of Sir Eustace Pedlar.

Anne determines that the key to these happenings is the mysterious message and sets out to decode it. Her efforts prove frustrating. As a matter of fact, she can't even find Kilmorden Castle -- until she happens to walk past a London steamship office. She discovers that the castle is actually a cruise ship sailing for Cape Town, Africa on 1/17/22. Anne, of course, buys a ticket for the cruise.

On the ship, Anne discovers that the murder of the woman in the Mill House and the mysterious death of the thin man are only symptoms of a widespread crime wave. Anne learns that the woman, Nadina, worked as an agent for an elusive but powerful Colonel, who heads an international crime organization. Jewel robberies, forgery, espionage, sabotage, and assassinations are all business as usual for the Colonel.

Before the war, Nadina and her husband stole 100,000 of DeBeers diamonds for the Colonel. The Colonel blamed two young prospectors who had discovered diamonds in the jungles of British Guiana. Nadina substituted a few of the DeBeers diamonds for the prospectors' samples and kept a few of the prospectors' diamonds for her own "protection." If the Colonel ever double-crossed her, she intended to use these diamonds to support the prospectors' story of substitution and to prove that the Colonel was the real criminal. The Colonel discovered her plan effectively silenced her.

Anne finds this information fairly easily but realizes that the two major points are still a mystery. Who is the Colonel and where are the diamonds located now? There are plenty of suspects aboard the Kilmorden Castle. All Anne has to do is find the right one.

Could Colonel Race be the criminal? He is a strong, silent man thought to be in the Secret Service. And he certainly knows a great deal about the Colonel's career and about the jewel robbery. Besides, the rank is right.

Or maybe it is the beautiful and regal Mrs. Suzanne Blair. After all, she is the one who winds up with the missing diamonds dumped on her stomach at 1 A.M. in cabin 71 on January 22? 

There is also Sir Eustace Pedlar, M.P. He appears to be a jovial, well-respected middle-aged man, but why won't he reveal how he made his money?

Guy Pagett, Sir Eustace's resident secretary, has a very guilty-looking face. Still, he has the morals of a mid-Victorian. Or does he? The man is obviously hiding something.

How about Harry Raybum, another of Sir Eustace's secretaries? He's obviously the Man in the Brown Suit who is wanted for the murder of Nadina. Anne, however, does not want him to be guilty because she is madly in love with him.

Finally, there is Rev. Edward Chichester, a returning missionary. He says he has been in Africa for several years working with the natives. But why doesn't he have a tan? He's not even sunburned..

Anne struggles to name the Colonel as the Kilmorden Castle cruises along the coast of Africa. Will she catch the Colonel before he eliminates her? The answer is not necessarily a forgone conclusion.