褐衣男子简介
flora
简单版：
安妮是一个热爱冒险的女孩，为了查出两件命案的凶手，她孤身踏上了开往南非的轮船。在轮船上她遇上了与这两件命案关系密切的褐衣男子并爱上了他原来褐衣男子是为了调查多年前使他蒙冤的德比尔斯钻石掉包案而跟踪这两人，谁知道这两人莫名其妙死去，他又一次成了替罪羊。为了洗情自己的冤屈，他决心要查出这一切的主使，那个代号叫上校的人到底是谁。据说上校是现在南非正在进行的大罢工的幕后主使，因此，他一定就在这艘轮船上，他到底是谁呢？
还没有查出上校是谁，安妮就接连几次遇险，有人想把她推下轮船，幸好褐衣男子救了她，下船和褐衣分手以后又有人跟踪她想诬陷她，有人设计想绑架她，最后一次安妮在敌人的狂追下落下山崖。
山崖下恰好是褐衣几年来在南非的住所，安妮让褐衣给救了回去。他们俩在日夜相处中情愫渐生。褐衣向她吐露了他的身世，安妮也给他讲述了她的故事。
在褐衣送安妮回英国的前夕，他们受到敌人的攻击，逃出生天后他们俩再也离不开了。
褐衣为了查出上校的身份来到了约翰尼斯堡，而安妮则回到金伯利和朋友呆在一起。一天，安妮收到一封署名哈利（褐衣）的信，让她到某地和他见面。虽然知道这是敌人的诡计，安妮还是毅然赴约，因为她要亲自查出上校是谁……
复杂版：
年轻美丽的安妮带着对冒险的无限憧憬来到了伦敦。在一次地铁事故中，她目睹了一个人失足掉下车轨，并捡到了为他检查的“医生”身上掉下的一张纸条。次日她又从报纸上读到在屋主外出度假待租的“磨房”里发现一具无名女尸的新闻，曾有一个穿褐色外套的男人在她之后进入房子并在几分钟之后慌慌张张地离去。而前日那个死去的男人身上也有一张到这个房子里看房的凭条。一时之间，'褐衣男子'杀害了这两人的消息在伦敦传得沸沸扬扬。安妮意识到自己捡到纸条的重要性，她去伦敦警视厅去报告时却受到冷遇，一怒之下安妮到了报社老板那里谋得一份职位，自己开始调查并把调查结果送到报社。按照纸条上的提示，安妮搭乘kilmorden号开往南非的轮船，身上只有25英镑。
在船上她认识了美丽迷人的布莱尔太太，并与她成为好友，认识了据说是为政府做秘密工作的雷斯上校，他给他们讲了许多关于欺诈间谍方面的故事，比如多年以前发生在南非的DE BEERS钻石掉包案等！还有风趣幽默的佩德勒爵士（“磨房'的屋主，事发当时他在戛纳度假），他亲切地称安妮为长腿美女，水灵眼儿！以及爵士那面目可憎的秘书彼吉特，他总解释不出他在案发那日做了些什么，而按照安排他应该在佛罗伦斯度假。按照纸条上的提示安妮住到了17号舱房，在纸条上提示的那天晚上，一个受伤的男子逃到了安妮的房间，他就是褐衣男子，但是安妮的直觉告诉她，他并没有杀害这两个人。褐衣男子并不领安妮的情，和她大吵之后离去了安妮把她的真实身份和目的告诉了布莱尔太太，住在71号舱房的布莱尔太太告诉她，就在那天晚上，竟然有人莫名其妙的从气窗扔给她一卷底片，当她们打开底片合的时候，发现里面装的竟然是钻石！
在抵达开普敦前的那个晚上，安妮在甲板上遭到了袭击，一个人竟然想要把她扔到海里去，幸亏“褐衣男子”及时赶到救了她，当他们追上逃跑的袭击者时，发现他竟然是彼吉特！
经过这几次经历，安妮和褐衣男子的关系密切了起来，她更加确信他不是一个凶手，虽然他是以爵士的第二秘书身份出行，但是安妮已经发现他的真实身份，那就是在数年前DE BEERS掉包案中声誉扫地的年轻人之一哈里·雷伯恩。
到达开普敦以后，安妮更是霉运不断，先是中了人的圈套被绑在一所孤零零的房子里，幸亏她机敏地逃脱，随后又被人跟踪，她成功地躲开了追踪，在最后一刻跳上了开往罗得西亚（现津巴布韦）的火车。
在布拉瓦尔的旅馆里，安妮收到了来自哈里的纸条，当她赴约的时候，却被人跟踪，她狂奔起来想要甩掉此日，谁知道一个山路竟然变了方向，她掉下了山崖。
当她醒过来的时候，她住在一个孤岛上，哈里就在她的身边。其实那张纸条根本不是他送的，那么到底是谁处心积虑的要除掉安妮呢？
哈里和安妮相爱了，但是哈里因为自己的名誉没有得到澄清，一直不敢也不愿向安妮表白，他给安妮讲了当年他和好朋友被诬陷的那一段故事。他和朋友发现了一个大钻石矿，他们兴冲冲地带着样品回南非来给专家检验，结果钻石却被掉包，他们被诬陷偷了DE BEERS的钻石。因为朋友父亲的影响力，他们没有被起诉。随后他们参加了战争，朋友在行动中牺牲，而他活了下来，隐姓埋名过了许多年，直到他发现了参与诬陷他的一个人出现在他面前，他才起了为自己正名的决心。他知道他是一个犯罪组织为了夺取钻石而找到的替罪羊，而这个组织的首脑是一个外号叫做“上校”的人。
但是上校是谁呢？没有人知道。据说现在南非进行的一次大罢工的幕后主使也就是这位上校。
哈里坚持要送安妮回到英国，而由他自己独自去调查出真相。在送安妮离开之前，他们遭到了袭击，二人好不容易逃脱。经过这一番患难，他们再也离不开彼此了，哈里同意不送安妮回英国，而让她回到了朋友身边。
没过几天，安妮又收到一封署名哈里的纸条，她知道这是上校伪造的，但是她还是走进了圈套，她发现，原来上校是……
阿婆在自传里提到，这是她第一次（也是唯一一次）试图把一个现实生活中的人写到小说里，可是失败了。这个人就是她前夫的朋友，看得出来阿婆并不喜欢他，并在小说中把他塑造成了有一副可恶嘴脸的秘书。
该书出版于1924年。89年改编成同名电影，但是剧情背景等都有较大改动。
英文版：
"It is, I think, the only time I have tried to put a real person whom I knew well into a book, and I don't think it succeeded. Belcher didn't come to life, but someone called Sir Eustace Pedlar did." -An Autobiography
The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)
You like your Christie straight and are proud of it. Lord knows anything the good lady does is fine with you. Once in a while, though... tell the truth ... you find Miss Marple's stolid good sense and Poirot's eternal fastidiousness a bit wearing. Again, those stuffy English country houses, with their supply of fresh corpses and fresher nephews, are interesting but not always your cup of tea. Nothing serious, of course! just that it would be nice, once in a while, to match wits with a sleuth who was effervescent and attractive, as well as sharp-eyed and keen-witted. And a change of scene — say, an ocean voyage, or a train ride through Africa, or a small revolution — would leave you none the worse for wear, either.
Meet, then, Anne Beddingfeld, recently orphaned daughter of the late Professor Charles Beddingfeld, the eminent authority on Neanderthal man. Anne is a young woman of many talents. She is not only levelheaded, having had to administer her father's meager fortunes throughout his absentminded life, and aggressive, having had the pluck to wangle a coveted special correspondent's job on the Daily Budget,and poor, having been left only £87 by her father's estate, but she is also fabulously beautiful, friendless, restless, adventuresome, courageous, and curious as a cat. All told, Anne's personality is a lucky break for the readers of The Man in the Brown Suit.If she had been content to marry the doctor in Little Hampsly and settle ingloriously down, we would have been deprived of a tale of international intrigue, diamond thefts, murder, shipboard shenanigans, bomb-throwing revolutionaries, island idylls, and at least three more marriage proposals.
Anne is on the lookout for adventures but is introduced to her mystery simply because she is in the right place at the right time. Who says there is no such thing as Fate? As she waits for a train on the platform of the Hyde Park Comer tube station, a small, thin, bearded man, whose overcoat reeks of mothballs, accidentally falls to his death.
Only Anne, of all the officialdom in attendance, realizes that the doctor who checks the body is no doctor at all. Only she finds the message "17.122 Kilmorden Castle" which the doctor rifles from the pockets of the dead man and then accidentally drops. And only she connects this "doctor" with the Man in the Brown Suit who is wanted for the murder of a beautiful foreign woman in the unoccupied Mill House of Sir Eustace Pedlar.
Since the obvious key to all this is the mysterious message, Anne sets to decoding "17.122 Kilmorden Castle." Using all her deductive talents, though, she can't decipher "17.122." She can't even find Kilmorden Castle—until she happens to walk past a London steamship office. She realizes that the castle is actually a cruise ship bound for Cape Town, Africa. Auspiciously, the ship will be sailing on 1/17/22. Like any self-respecting heroine, she manages to be on board, paying for her passage with all of her inheritance.
No doubt some of the financially practical among you are shaking your heads and muttering about legislation to protect orphans from themselves, but Anne's passage turns out to be a solid investment. She is on the ship for no more than two days (discounting the time she is seasick and prays for a merciful end) when she discovers that she is only peripherally investigating the beautiful foreign woman's murder and the small thin man's accidental but mysterious demise. These two deaths are the symptoms, so to speak, of an ugly and more widespread disease.
Anne learns that the woman, Nadina, spent part other young life as an agent for an elusive but powerful Colonel, a Napoleon-gone-wrong who heads an international organization of criminals. Jewel robberies, forgery, wartime espionage, sabotage, and discreet assassinations are all part of a busy and rewarding day for him.
Before the war, Nadina, using her husband as accomplice, had stolen £100,000 of DeBeers diamonds for the Colonel. The Colonel, being the mastermind that he is, had a ready scapegoat for the blame. Two young prospectors had been making a hoopla about discovering a new diamond source in the jungles of British Guiana. Beautiful Nadina easily substituted a few of the DeBeers diamonds for their samples and kept back a few of the prospectors' diamonds for her own "protection." If the Colonel ever forgot his old friends, she intended to use these diamonds to substantiate the prospectors' story of substitution and to pin the blame squarely on the Colonel. Needless to say, the Colonel did not approve of her plan and took ready steps to stay its execution.
Anne finds this information easily enough, but to her everlasting delight, realizes that the two major points are still at loose ends, namely, who is the Colonel and where are the diamonds located now?
The Kilmorden Castle is a neat treasure trovc of suspects. All Anne has to do is find the right one.
Could Colonel Race be her man? A strong, silent Rhodesian rumored to be in the government's Secret Service, he certainly seems to know a great deal about the high spots of the Colonel's
career and about the jewel robbery. And, after all, the rank is right.
Or, perhaps beautiful and regal Mrs. Suzanne Blair disguises a razor-sharp criminal brain with a facade of concern for social happenings and new clothes. Why should it be she who winds up with the missing diamonds unceremoniously dumped on her stomach at I A.M. in cabin 71 on 22 January? (Remember? 17.122 Kilmorden Castle.)
Include Sir Eustace Pedlar, M.P., on Annc's list. Sure, he's a jovial, well-respected middle-aged man with a certain girth, but why won't he talk about how he made his money?
Guy Pagett, Sir Eustace's resident secretary, has the face of a fifteenth-century poisoner — someone the Borgias would send on odd jobs. Still, he has the morals of a mid-Victorian. Or does he? The man obviously harbors a guilty secret.
Harry Rayburn, traveling as another secretary to Sir Eustace, is no one's man but his own. Clearly, he's the Man in the Brown Suit who, on the strength of circumstantial evidence, is wanted for the murder of Nadina. The question in Anne's mind is, "Did he kill her?" She hopes not because she is madly in love with him.
Finally, Rev. Edward Chichester, a returning missionary, is someone who bears watching, if only because he says he spent several years in Africa working among the natives. This is admirable, of course, but why doesn't he have a tan? He's not even sunburned pink around the edges.
While Anne struggles to name the Colonel, the Colonel struggles to eliminate Anne. It's a match of wit? of the most exciting kind, with Anne and the elusive Colonel sparring on the KilmordenCastle and up and down the coast of Africa. Who wins? It's a near thing, and it's no comfort that Anne tells the story herself. After all, many tales wander into print posthumously.
JANICE CURRY