Fire-Tongue, Sax Rohmer [trending books to read TXT] 📗

“Fire-Tongue!” he said, tensely, following a short silence. “For God’s sake, when did you hear that word?”

“I heard it,” replied Harley, slowly, “to-night.” He fixed his gaze intently upon the sallow face of the American. “It was spoken by Sir Charles Abingdon.”

Closely as he watched Nicol Brinn while pronouncing this name he could not detect the slightest change of expression in the stoic features.

“Sir Charles Abingdon,” echoed Brinn; “and in what way is it connected with your case?”

“In this way,” answered Harley. “It was spoken by Sir Charles a few moments before he died.”

Nicol Brinn’s drooping lids flickered rapidly. “Before he died! Then Sir Charles Abingdon is dead! When did he die?”

“He died to-night and the last words that he uttered were ‘Fire-Tongue’—” He paused, never for a moment removing that fixed gaze from the other’s face.

“Go on,” prompted Mr. Brinn.

“And ‘Nicol Brinn.’”

Nicol Brinn stood still as a carven man. Indeed, only by an added rigidity in his pose did he reward Paul Harley’s intense scrutiny. A silence charged with drama was finally broken by the American. “Mr. Harley,” he said, “you told me that you were up against the big proposition of your career. You are right.”

With that he sat down in an armchair and, resting his chin in his hand, gazed fixedly into the empty grate. His pose was that of a man who is suddenly called upon to review the course of his life and upon whose decision respecting the future that life may depend. Paul Harley watched him in silence.

“Give me the whole story,” said Mr. Brinn, “right from the beginning.” He looked up. “Do you know what you have done to-night, Mr. Harley?”

Paul Harley shook his head. Swiftly, like the touch of an icy finger, that warning note of danger had reached him again.

“I’ll tell you,” continued Brinn. “You have opened the gates of hell!”

Not another word did he speak while Paul Harley, pacing slowly up and down before the hearth, gave him a plain account of the case, omitting all reference to his personal suspicions and to the measures which he had taken to confirm them.

He laid his cards upon the table deliberately. Whether Sir Charles Abingdon had uttered the name of Nicol Brinn as that of one whose aid should be sought or as a warning, he had yet to learn. And by this apparent frankness he hoped to achieve his object. That the celebrated American was in any way concerned in the menace which had overhung Sir Charles he was not prepared to believe. But he awaited with curiosity that explanation which Nicol Brinn must feel called upon to offer.

“You think he was murdered?” said Brinn in his high, toneless voice.

“I have formed no definite opinion. What is your own?”

“I may not look it,” replied Brinn, “but at this present moment I am the most hopelessly puzzled and badly frightened man in London.”

“Frightened?” asked Harley, curiously.

“I said frightened, I also said puzzled; and I am far too puzzled to be able to express any opinion respecting the death of Sir Charles Abingdon. When I tell you all I know of him you will wonder as much as I do, Mr. Harley, why my name should have been the last to pass his lips.”

He half turned in the big chair to face his visitor, who now was standing before the fireplace staring down at him.

“One day last month,” he resumed, “I got out of my car in a big hurry at the top of the Haymarket. A fool on a motorcycle passed between the car and the sidewalk just as I stepped down, and I knew nothing further until I woke up in a drug store close by, feeling very dazed and with my coat in tatters and my left arm numbed from the elbow. A man was standing watching me, and presently when I had pulled round he gave me his card.

“He was Sir Charles Abingdon, who had been passing at the time of the accident. That was how I met him, and as there was nothing seriously wrong with me I saw him no more professionally. But he dined with me a week later and I had lunch at his club about a fortnight ago.”

He looked up at Harley. “On my solemn word of honour,” he said, “that’s all I know about Sir Charles Abingdon.”

Paul Harley returned the other’s fixed stare. “I don’t doubt your assurance on the point, Mr. Brinn,” he acknowledged. “I can well understand that you must be badly puzzled; but I would remind you of your statement that you were also frightened. Why?”

Nicol Brinn glanced rapidly about his own luxurious room in an oddly apprehensive manner. “I said that,” he declared, “and I meant it.”

“Then I can only suppose,” resumed Harley, deliberately, “that the cause of your fear lies in the term, ‘Fire-Tongue’?”

Brinn again rested his chin in his hand, staring fixedly into the grate.

“And possibly,” went on the remorseless voice, “you can explain the significance of that term?”

Nicol Brinn remained silent—but with one foot he was slowly tapping the edge of the fender.

“Mr. Harley,” he began, abruptly, “you have been perfectly frank with me and in return I wish to be as frank with you as I can be. I am face to face with a thing that has haunted me for seven years, and every step I take from now onward has to be considered carefully, for any step might be my last. And that’s not the worst of the matter. I will risk one of those steps here and now. You ask me to explain the significance of Fire-Tongue” (there was a perceptible pause before he pronounced the word, which Harley duly noticed). “I am going to tell you that Sir Charles Abingdon, when I lunched with him at his club, asked me precisely the same thing.”

“What! He asked you that so long as two weeks ago?”

“He did.”

“And what reason did he give for his inquiry?”

Nicol Brinn began to tap the fender again with his foot. “Let me think,” he replied. “I recognize that you must regard my reticence as peculiar, Mr. Harley, but if ever a man had reason to look before he leaped, I am that man.”

Silence fell again, and Paul Harley, staring down at Nicol Brinn, realized that this indeed was the most hopelessly mystifying case which fate had ever thrown in his way. This millionaire scholar and traveller, whose figure was as familiar in remote cities of the world as it was familiar in New York, in Paris, and in London, could not conceivably be associated with any criminal organization. Yet his hesitancy was indeed difficult to explain, and because it seemed to Harley that the cloud which had stolen out across the house of Sir Charles Abingdon now hung threateningly over