Fire-Tongue. Sax Rohmer
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Harley,” replied Brinn, suddenly standing up, “I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“I have said so. But I’d give a lot more than you might believe to know that Abingdon had told you the story which he told me.”
“You are not helping, Mr. Brinn,” said Harley, sternly. “I believe and I think that you share my belief that Sir Charles Abingdon did not die from natural causes. You are repressing valuable evidence. Allow me to remind you that if anything should come to light necessitating a post-mortem examination of the body, you will be forced to divulge in a court of justice the facts which you refuse to divulge to me.”
“I know it,” said Brinn, shortly.
He shot out one long arm and grasped Harley’s shoulder as in a vice. “I’m counted a wealthy man,” he continued, “but I’d give every cent I possess to see ‘paid’ put to the bill of a certain person. Listen. You don’t think I was in any way concerned in the death of Sir Charles Abingdon? It isn’t thinkable. But you do think I’m in possession of facts which would help you find out who is. You’re right.”
“Good God!” cried Harley. “Yet you remain silent!”
“Not so loud—not so loud!” implored Brinn, repeating that odd, almost furtive glance around. “Mr. Harley—you know me. You’ve heard of me and now you’ve met me. You know my place in the world. Do you believe me when I say that from this moment onward I don’t trust my own servants? Nor my own friends?” He removed his grip from Harley’s shoulder. “Inanimate things look like enemies. That mummy over yonder may have ears!”
“I’m afraid I don’t altogether understand you.”
“See here!”
Nicol Brinn crossed to a bureau, unlocked it, and while Harley watched him curiously, sought among a number of press cuttings. Presently he found the cutting for which he was looking. “This was said,” he explained, handing the slip to Harley, “at the Players’ Club in New York, after a big dinner in pre-dry days. It was said in confidence. But some disguised reporter had got in and it came out in print next morning. Read it.”
Paul Harley accepted the cutting and read the following:
NICOL BRINN’S SECRET AMBITIONS
MILLIONAIRE SPORTSMAN WHO WANTS TO SHOOT
NIAGARA!
Mr. Nicol Brinn of Cincinnati, who is at present in New York, opened his heart to members of the Players’ Club last night. Our prominent citizen, responding to a toast, “the distinguished visitor,” said:
“I’d like to live through months of midnight frozen in among the polar ice; I’d like to cross Africa from east to west and get lost in the middle. I’d like to have a Montana sheriff’s posse on my heels for horse stealing, and I’ve prayed to be wrecked on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe to see if I am man enough to live it out. I want to stand my trial for murder and defend my own case, and I want to be found by the eunuchs in the harem of the Shah. I want to dive for pearls and scale the Matterhorn. I want to know where the tunnel leads to—the tunnel down under the Great Pyramid of Gizeh—and I’d love to shoot Niagara Falls in a barrel.”
“It sounds characteristic,” murmured Harley, laying the slip on the coffee table.
“It’s true!” declared Brinn. “I said it and I meant it. I’m a glutton for danger, Mr. Harley, and I’m going to tell you why. Something happened to me seven years ago—”
“In India?”
“In India. Correct. Something happened to me, sir, which just took the sunshine out of life. At the time I didn’t know all it meant. I’ve learned since. For seven years I have been flirting with death and hoping to fall!”
Harley stared at him uncomprehendingly. “More than ever I fail to understand.”
“I can only ask you to be patient, Mr. Harley. Time is a wonderful doctor, and I don’t say that in seven years the old wound hasn’t healed a bit. But to-night you have, unknowingly, undone all that time had done. I’m a man that has been down into hell. I bought myself out. I thought I knew where the pit was located. I thought I was well away from it, Mr. Harley, and you have told me something tonight which makes me think that it isn’t where I supposed at all, but hidden down here right under our feet in London. And we’re both standing on the edge!”
That Nicol Brinn was deeply moved no student of humanity could have doubted. From beneath the stoic’s cloak another than the dare-devil millionaire whose crazy exploits were notorious had looked out. Persistently the note of danger came to Paul Harley. Those luxurious Piccadilly chambers were a focus upon which some malignant will was concentrated. He became conscious of anger. It was the anger of a just man who finds himself impotent—the rage of Prometheus bound.
“Mr. Brinn!” he cried, “I accept unreservedly all that you have told me. Its real significance I do not and cannot grasp. But my theory that Sir Charles Abingdon was done to death has become a conviction. That a like fate threatens yourself and possibly myself I begin to believe.” He looked almost fiercely into the other’s dull eyes. “My reputation east and west is that of a white man. Mr. Brinn—I ask you for your confidence.”
Nicol Brinn dropped his chin into his hand and resumed that unseeing stare into the open grate. Paul Harley watched him intently.
“There isn’t any one I would rather confide in,” confessed the American. “We are linked by a common danger. But”—he looked up—“I must ask you again to be patient. Give me time to think—to make plans. For your own part—be cautious. You witnessed the death of Sir Charles Abingdon. You don’t think and perhaps I don’t think that it was natural; but whatever steps you may have taken to confirm your theories, I dare not hope that you will ever discover even a ghost of a clue. I simply warn you, Mr. Harley. You may go the same way. So may I. Others have travelled that road before poor Abingdon.”
He suddenly stood up, all at once exhibiting to his watchful visitor that tremendous nervous energy which underlay his impassive manner. “Good God!” he said, in a cold, even voice. “To think that it is here in London. What does it mean?”
He ceased speaking abruptly, and stood with his elbow resting on a corner of the mantelpiece.
“You speak of it being here,” prompted Harley. “Is it consistent with your mysterious difficulties to inform me to what you refer?”
Nicol Brinn glanced aside at him. “If I informed you of that,” he answered, “you would know all you want to know. But neither you nor I would live to use the knowledge. Give me time. Let me think.”
Silence fell in the big room, Nicol Brinn staring down vacantly into the empty fireplace, Paul Harley standing watching him in a state of almost stupefied mystification. Muffled to a soothing murmur the sounds of Piccadilly penetrated to that curtained chamber which held so many records of the troubled past and which seemed to be charged with shadowy portents of the future.
Something struck with a dull thud upon a windowpane—once—twice. There followed a faint, sibilant sound.
Paul Harley started and the stoical Nicol Brinn turned rapidly and glanced across the room.
“What was that?” asked Harley.
“I expect—it was an owl,” answered Brinn. “We sometimes get them over from the Green Park.”
His high voice sounded unemotional as ever. But it seemed to Paul Harley that his face, dimly illuminated by the upcast light from the lamp upon the coffee table, had paled, had become gaunt.
CHAPTER VI. PHIL ABINGDON ARRIVES