FIRE-TONGUE

by Fire Tongue [lit]

  Behind the motionless figure the Alaskan ermine and Manchurian leopards stared glassily across the room. The flying lemur continued apparently to contemplate the idea of swooping upon the head of the tigress where she crouched upon her near-by pedestal. The death masks grinned; the Egyptian priestess smiled. And Nicol Britain, expressionless, watched the traffic in Piccadilly.

  There came a knock at the door.

  "In," said Nicol Brinn.

  Hoskins, his manservant, entered: "Detective Inspector Wessex would like to see you, sir."

  Nicol Brinn did not turn around. "In," he repeated.

  Silently Hoskins retired, and, following a short interval, ushered into the room a typical detective officer, a Scotland Yard man of the best type. For Detective Inspector Wessex no less an authority than Paul Harley had predicted a brilliant future, and since he had attained to his present rank while still a comparatively young man, the prophecy of the celebrated private investigator was likely to be realized. Nicol Brinn turned and bowed in the direction of a large armchair.

  "Pray sit down, Inspector," he said.

  The high, monotonous voice expressed neither surprise nor welcome, nor any other sentiment whatever.

  Detective Inspector Wessex returned the bow, placed his bowler hat upon the carpet, and sat down in the armchair. Nicol Brinn seated himself upon a settee over which was draped a very fine piece of Persian tapestry, and stared at his visitor with eyes which expressed nothing but a sort of philosophic stupidity, but which, as a matter of fact, photographed the personality of the man indelibly upon that keen brain.

  Detective Inspector Wessex cleared his throat and did not appear to be quite at ease.

  "What is it?" inquired Nicol Brinn, and proceeded to light his cigar.

  "Well, sir," said the detective, frankly, "it's a mighty awkward business, and I don't know just how to approach it."

  "Shortest way," drawled Nicol Brinn. "Don't study me."

  "Thanks," said Wessex, "I'll do my best. It's like this"--he stared frankly at the impassive face: "Where is Mr. Paul Harley?"

  Nicol Brinn gazed at the lighted end of his cigar meditatively for a moment and then replaced it in the right and not in the left corner of his mouth. Even to the trained eye of the detective inspector he seemed to be quite unmoved, but one who knew him well would have recognized that this simple action betokened suppressed excitement.

  "He left these chambers at ten-fifteen on Wednesday night," replied the American. "I had never seen him before and I have never seen him since."

  "Sure?"

  "Quite."

  "Could you swear to it before a jury?"

  "You seem to doubt my word."

  Detective Inspector Wessex stood up. "Mr. Brinn," he said, "I am in an awkward corner. I know you for a man with a fine sporting reputation, and therefore I don't doubt your word. But Mr. Paul Harley disappeared last night."

  At last Nicol Brinn was moved. A second time he took the cigar from his mouth, gazed at the end reflectively, and then hurled the cigar across the room into the hearth. He stood up, walked to a window, and stared out. "Just sit quiet a minute," came the toneless voice. "You've hit me harder than you know. I want to think it out."

  At the back of the tall, slim figure Detective Inspector Wessex stared with a sort ef wonder. Mr. Nicol Brinn of Cincinnati was a conundrum which he found himself unable to catalogue, although in his gallery of queer characters were many eccentric and peculiar. If Nicol Brinn should prove to be crooked, then automatically he became insane. This Wessex had reasoned out even before he had set eyes upon the celebrated American traveller. His very first glimpse of Nicol Brinn had confirmed his reasoning, except that the cool, calm strength of the man had done much to upset the theory of lunacy.

  Followed an interval of unbroken silence. Not even the ticking of a clock could be heard in that long, singularly furnished apartment. Then, as the detective continued to gaze upon the back of Mr. Nicol Brinn, suddenly the latter turned.

  "Detective Inspector Wessex," he said, "there has been a cloud hanging over mv head for seven years. That cloud is going to burst very soon, and it looks as if it were going to do damage."

  "I don't understand you, sir," replied the detective, bluntly. "But I have been put in charge of the most extraordinary case that has ever come my way and I'll ask you to make yourself as clear as possible."

  "I'll do all I can," Nicol Brinn assured him. "But first tell me something: Why have you come to me for information in respect to Mr. Paul Harley?"

  "I'll answer your question," said Wessex, and the fact did not escape the keen observing power of Nicol Brinn that the detective's manner had grown guarded. "He informed Mr. Innes, his secretary, before setting out, that he was coming here to your chambers."

  Nicol Brinn stared blankly at the speaker. "He told him that? When?"

  "Yesterday."

  "That he was coming here?"

  "He did."

  Nicol Brinn sat down again upon the settee. "Detective Inspector," said he, "I give you my word of honour as a gentleman that I last saw Mr. Paul Harley at ten-fifteen on Wednesday night. Since then, not only have I not seen him, but I have received no communication from him."

  The keen glance of the detective met and challenged the dull glance of the speaker. "I accept your word, sir," said Wessex, finally, and he sighed and scratched his chin in the manner of a man hopelessly puzzled.

  Silence fell again. The muted sounds of Piccadilly became audible in the stillness. Cabs and cars rolled by below, their occupants all unaware of the fact that in that long, museumlike room above their heads lay the key to a tragedy and the clue to a mystery.

  "Look here, sir," said the detective, suddenly, "the result of Mr. Paul Harley's investigations right up to date has been placed in my hands, together with all his notes. I wonder if you realize the fact that, supposing Mr. Harley does not return, I am in repossession of sufficient evidence to justify me in putting you under arrest?"

  "I see your point quite clearly," replied Nirol Brinn. "I have seen my danger since the evening that Mr Paul Harley walked into this room: but I'll confess I did not anticipate this particular development."

  "To get right down to business," said Wessex, "if Mr. Paul Harley did not come here, where, in your idea, did he go?"

  Nicol Brinn considered the speaker meditatively. "If I knew that," said he, "maybe I could help. I told him here in this very room that the pair of us were walking on the edge of hell. I don't like to say it, and you don't know all it means, but in my opinion he has taken a step too far."

  Detective Inspector Wessex stood up impatiently. "You have already talked in that strain to Mr. Harley," he said, a bit brusquely. "Mr. Innes has reported something of the conversation to me. But I must ask you to remember that, whereas Mr. Paul Harley is an unofficial investigator, I am an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, and figures of speech are of no use to me. I want facts. I want plain speaking. I ask you for help and you answer in parables. Now perhaps I am saying too much, and perhaps I am not, but that Mr. Harley was right in what he believed, the circumstances of his present disappearance go to prove. He learned too much about something called Fire-Tongue."

  Wessex spoke the word challengingly, staring straight into the eyes of Nicol Brinn, but the latter gave no sign, and Wessex, concealing his disappointment, continued: "You know more about Fire-Tongue than you ever told Mr. Paul Harley. All you know I have got to know. Mr. Harley has been kidnapped, perhaps done to death."

  "Why do you say so?" asked Nicol Brinn, rapidly.

  "Because I know it is so. It does not matter how I know."

  "You are certain that his absence is not voluntary?"

  "We have definite evidence to that effect."

  "I don't expect you to be frank with me; Detective Inspector, but I'll be as frank with you as I can be. I haven't the slightest idea in the world where Mr. Harley is. But I have information which, if I knew where he was, would quite possibly ena
ble me to rescue him."

  "Provided he is alive!" added Wessex, angrily.

  "What leads you to suppose that he is not?"

  "If he is alive, he is a prisoner."

  "Good God!" said Nicol Brinn in a low voice. "It has come." He took a step toward the detective. "Mr. Wessex," he continued, "I don't tell you to do whatever your duty indicates; I know you will do it. But in the interests of everybody concerned I have a request to make. Have me watched if you like--I suppose that's automatic. But whatever happens, and wherever your suspicions point, give me twenty-four hours. As I think you can see, I am a man who thinks slowly, but moves with a rush. You can believe me or not, but I am even more anxious than you are to see this thing through. You think I know what lies back of it all, and I don't say that you are not right. But one thing you don't know, and that thing I can't tell you. In twenty-four hours I might be able to tell you. Whatever happens, even if poor Harley is found dead, don't hamper my movements between now and this time tomorrow."

  Wessex, who had been watching the speaker intently, suddenly held out his hand. "It's a bet!" he said. "It's my case, and I'll conduct it in my own way."

  "Mr. Wessex," replied Nicol Brinn, taking the extended hand, "I think you are a clever man. There are questions you would like to ask me, and there are questions I would like to ask you. But we both realize the facts of the situation, and we are both silent. One thing I'll say: You are in the deadliest peril you have ever known. Be careful. Believe me I mean it. Be very careful."

  CHAPTER XIV. WESSEX GETS BUSY

  Innes rose from the chair usually occupied by Paul Harley as Detective Inspector Wessex, with a very blank face, walked into the office. Innes looked haggard and exhibited unmistakable signs of anxiety. Since he had received that dramatic telephone message from his chief he had not spared himself for a moment. The official machinery of Scotland Yard was at work endeavouring to trace the missing man, but since it had proved impossible to find out from where the message had been sent, the investigation was handicapped at the very outset. Close inquiries at the Savoy Hotel had shown that Harley had not been there. Wessex, who was a thorough artist within his limitations, had satisfied himself that none of the callers who had asked for Ormuz Khan, and no one who had loitered about the lobbies, could possibly have been even a disguised Paul Harley.

  To Inspector Wessex the lines along which Paul Harley was operating remained a matter of profound amazement and mystification. His interview with Mr. Nicol Brinn had only served to baffle him more hopelessly than ever. The nature of Paul Harley's inquiries--inquiries which, presumably from the death of Sir Charles Abingdon, had led him to investigate the movements of two persons of international repute, neither apparently having even the most remote connection with anything crooked--was a conundrum for the answer to which the detectlve inspector sought in vain.

  "I can see you have no news," said Innes, dully.

  "To be perfectly honest," replied Wessex, "I feel like a man who is walking in his sleep. Except for the extraordinary words uttered by the late Sir Charles Abingdon, I fail to see that there is any possible connection between his death and Mr. Nicol Brinn. I simply can't fathom what Mr. Harley was working upon. To my mind there is not the slightest evidence of foul play in the case. There is no motive; apart from which, there is absolutely no link."

  "Nevertheless," replied Innes, slowly, "you know the chief, and therefore you know as well as I do that he would not have instructed me to communicate with you unless he had definite evidence in his possession. It is perfectly clear that he was interrupted in the act of telephoning. He was literally dragged away from the instrument."

  "I agree," said Wessex. "He had got into a tight corner somewhere right enough. But where does Nicol Brinn come in?"

  "How did he receive your communication?"

  "Oh, it took him fairly between the eyes. There is no denying that. He knows something."

  "What he knows," said Innes, slowly, "is what Mr. Harley learned last night, and what he fears is what has actually befallen the chief."

  Detective Inspector Wessex stood beside the Burmese cabinet, restlessly drumming his fingers upon its lacquered surface. "I am grateful for one thing," he said. "The press has not got hold of this story."

  "They need never get hold of it if you are moderately careful."

  "For several reasons I am going to be more than moderately careful. Whatever Fire-Tongue may be, its other name is sudden death! It's a devil of a business; a perfect nightmare. But--" he paused--

  "I am wondering what on earth induced Mr. Harley to send that parcel of linen to the analyst."

  "The result of the analysis may prove that the chief was not engaged upon any wild-goose chase."

  "By heavens!" Wessex sprang up, his eyes brightened, and he reached for his hat, "that gives me an idea!"

  "The message with the parcel was written upon paper bearing the letterhead of the late Sir Charles Abingdon. So Mr. Harley evidently made his first call there! I'm off, sir! The trail starts from that house!"

  Leaving Innes seated at the big table with an expression of despair upon his face, Detective Inspector Wessex set out. He blamed himself for wasting time upon the obvious, for concentrating too closely upon the clue given by Harley's last words to Innes before leaving the office in Chancery Lane. It was poor workmanship. He had hoped to take a short cut, and it had proved, as usual, to be a long one. Now, as he sat in a laggard cab feeling that every minute wasted might be a matter of life and death, he suddenly became conscious of personal anxiety. He was a courageous, indeed a fearless, man, and he was subconsciously surprised to find himself repeating the words of Nicol Brinn: "Be careful--be very careful!" With all the ardour of the professional, he longed to find a clue which should lead him to the heart of the mystery.

  Innes had frankly outlined the whole of Paul Harley's case to date, and Detective Inspector Wessex, although he had not admitted the fact, had nevertheless recognized that from start to finish the thing did not offer one single line of inquiry which he would have been capable of following up. That Paul Harley had found material to work upon, had somehow picked up a definite clue from this cloudy maze, earned the envious admiration of the Scotland Yard man.

  Arrived at his destination, he asked to see Miss Abingdon, and was shown by the butler into a charmingly furnished little sitting room which was deeply impressed with the personality of its dainty owner. It was essentially and delightfully feminine. Yet in the decorations and in the arrangement of the furniture there was a note of independence which was almost a note of defiance. Phyllis Abingdon, an appealingly pathetic figure in her black dress, rose to greet the inspector.

  "Don't be alarmed, Miss Abingdon," he said, kindly. "My visit does not concern you personally in any way, but I thought perhaps you might be able to help me trace Mr. Paul Harley."

  Wessex had thus expressed himself with the best intentions, but even before the words were fully spoken he realized with a sort of shock that he could not well have made a worse opening. Phil Abingdon's eyes seemed to grow alarmingly large. She stood quite still, twisting his card between her supple fingers.

  "Mr. Harley!" she whispered.

  "I did not want to alarm you," said the detective, guiltily, "but--" He stopped, at a loss for words.

  "Has something happened to him?"

  "I am sorry if I have alarmed you," he assured her, "but there is some doubt respecting Mr. Harley's present whereabouts. Have you any idea where he went when he left this house yesterday?"

  "Yes, yes. I know where he went, quite well."

  "Benson, the butler, told me all about it when I came in." Phil Abingdon spoke excitedly, and took a step nearer Wessex. "He went to call upon Jones, our late parlourmaid."

  "Late parlourmaid?" echoed Wessex, uncomprehendingly.

  "Yes. He seemed to think he had made a discovery of importance."

  "Something to do with a parcel which he sent away from here to the analyst?"

  "Yes
! I have been wondering whatever it could be. In fact, I rang up his office this morning, but learned that he was out. It was a serviette which he took away. Did you know that?"

  "I did know it, Miss Abingdon. I called upon the analyst. I understand you were out when Mr. Harley came. May I ask who interviewed him?"

  "He saw Benson and Mrs. Howett, the housekeeper."

  "May I also see them?"

  "Yes, with pleasure. But please tell me"--Phil Abingdon looked up at him pleadingly--"do you thmk something--something dreadful has happened to Mr. Harley?"

  "Don't alarm yourself unduly," said Wessex. "I hope before the day is over to be in touch with him."

  As a matter of fact, he had no such hope. It was a lie intended to console the girl, to whom the news of Harley's disappearance seemed to have come as a terrible blow. More and more Wessex found himself to be groping in the dark. And when, in response to the ringing of the bell, Benson came in and repeated what had taken place on the previous day, the detective's state of mystification grew even more profound. As a matter of routine rather than with any hope of learning anything useful, he interviewed Mrs. Howett; but the statement of the voluble old lady gave no clue which Wessex could perceive to possess the slightest value.

  Both witnesses having been dismissed, he turned again to Phil Abingdon, who had been sitting watching him with a pathetic light of hope in her eyes throughout his examination of the butler and Mrs. Howett.

  "The next step is clear enough," he said, brightly. "I am off to South Lambeth Road. The woman Jones is the link we are looking for."

  "But the link with what, Mr. Wessex?" asked Phil Abingdon. "What is it all about?--what does it all mean?"

  "The link with Mr. Paul Harley," replied Wessex. He moved toward the door.

  "But won't you tell me something more before you go?" said the girl, beseechingly. "I--I--feel responsible if anything has happened to Mr. Harley. Please be frank with me. Are you afraid he is--in danger?"

  "Well, miss," replied the detective, haltingly, "he rang up his secretary, Mr. Innes, last night--we don't know where from--and admitted that he was in a rather tight corner. I don't believe for a moment that he is in actual danger, but he probably has--" again he hesitated--"good reasons of his own for remaining absent at present."