Part 3 (2/2)
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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 h.e.l.l. 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 impa.s.sive manner. ”Good G.o.d!” 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. m.u.f.fled 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
On the following afternoon Paul Harley was restlessly pacing his private office when Innes came in with a letter which had been delivered by hand. Harley took it eagerly and tore open the envelope. A look of expectancy faded from his eager face almost in the moment that it appeared there. ”No luck, Innes,” he said, gloomily. ”Merton reports that there is no trace of any dangerous foreign body in the liquids a.n.a.lyzed.”
He dropped the a.n.a.lyst's report into a wastebasket and resumed his restless promenade. Innes, who could see that his princ.i.p.al wanted to talk, waited. For it was Paul Harley's custom, when the clue to a labyrinth evaded him, to outline his difficulties to his confidential secretary, and by the mere exercise of verbal construction Harley would often detect the weak spot in his reasoning. This stage come to, he would dictate a carefully worded statement of the case to date and thus familiarize himself with its complexities.
”You see, Innes,” he began, suddenly, ”Sir Charles had taken no refreshment of any kind at Mr. Wilson's house nor before leaving his own. Neither had he smoked. No one had approached him. Therefore, if he was poisoned, he was poisoned at his own table. Since he was never out of my observation from the moment of entering the library up to that of his death, we are reduced to the only two possible mediums-the soup or the water. He had touched nothing else.”
”No wine?”
”Wine was on the table but none had been poured out. Let us see what evidence, capable of being put into writing, exists to support my theory that Sir Charles was poisoned. In the first place, he clearly went in fear of some such death. It was because of this that he consulted me. What was the origin of his fear? Something a.s.sociated with the term Fire-Tongue. So much is clear from Sir Charles's dying words, and his questioning Nicol Brinn on the point some weeks earlier.
”He was afraid, then, of something or someone linked in his mind with the word Fire-Tongue. What do we know about Fire-Tongue? One thing only: that it had to do with some episode which took place in India. This item we owe to Nicol Brinn.
”Very well. Sir Charles believed himself to be in danger from some thing or person unknown, a.s.sociated with India and with the term Fire-Tongue. What else? His house was entered during the night under circ.u.mstances suggesting that burglary was not the object of the entrance. And next? He was a.s.saulted, with murderous intent. Thirdly, he believed himself to be subjected to constant surveillance. Was this a delusion? It was not. After failing several times I myself detected someone d.o.g.g.i.ng my movements last night at the moment I entered Nicol Brinn's chambers. Nicol Brinn also saw this person.
”In short, Sir Charles was, beyond doubt, at the time of his death, receiving close attention from some mysterious person or persons the object of which he believed to be his death. Have I gone beyond established facts, Innes, thus far?”
”No, Mr. Harley. So far you are on solid ground.”
”Good. Leaving out of the question those points which we hope to clear up when the evidence of Miss Abingdon becomes available-how did Sir Charles learn that Nicol Brinn knew the meaning of Fire-Tongue?”
”He may have heard something to that effect in India.”
”If this were so he would scarcely have awaited a chance encounter to prosecute his inquiries, since Nicol Brinn is a well-known figure in London and Sir Charles had been home for several years.”
”Mr. Brinn may have said something after the accident and before he was in full possession of his senses which gave Sir Charles a clue.”
”He did not, Innes. I called at the druggist's establishment this morning. They recalled the incident, of course. Mr. Brinn never uttered a word until, opening his eyes, he said: 'h.e.l.lo! Am I much damaged?'”
Innes smiled discreetly. ”A remarkable character, Mr. Harley,” he said. ”Your biggest difficulty at the moment is to fit Mr. Nicol Brinn into the scheme.”
”He won't fit at all, Innes! We come to the final and conclusive item of evidence substantiating my theory of Sir Charles's murder: Nicol Brinn believes he was murdered. Nicol Brinn has known others, in his own words, 'to go the same way.' Yet Nicol Brinn, a millionaire, a scholar, a sportsman, and a gentleman, refuses to open his mouth.”
”He is afraid of something.”
”He is afraid of Fire-Tongue-whatever Fire-Tongue may be! I never saw a man of proved courage more afraid in my life. He prefers to court arrest for complicity in a murder rather than tell what he knows!”
”It's unbelievable.”
”It would be, Innes, if Nicol Brinn's fears were personal.”
Paul Harley checked his steps in front of the watchful secretary and gazed keenly into his eyes.
”Death has no terrors for Nicol Brinn,” he said slowly. ”All his life he has toyed with danger. He admitted to me that during the past seven years he had courted death. Isn't it plain enough, Innes? If ever a man possessed all that the world had to offer, Nicol Brinn is that man. In such a case and in such circ.u.mstances what do we look for?”
Innes shook his head.
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