Fire-Tongue by Sax Rohmer (the best electronic book reader txt) 📖

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 analyzed.”

He dropped the analyst’s report into a wastebasket and resumed his restless promenade. Innes, who could see that his principal 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 associated 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, associated with India and with the term Fire-Tongue. What else? His house was entered during the night under circumstances suggesting that burglary was not the object of the entrance. And next? He was assaulted, 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 dogging 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: ‘Hello! 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 circumstances what do we look for?”

Innes shook his head.

“We look for the woman!” snapped Paul Harley.

There came a rap at the door and Miss Smith, the typist, entered. “Miss Phil Abingdon and Doctor McMurdoch,” she said.

“Good heavens!” muttered Harley. “So soon? Why, she can only just—” He checked himself. “Show them in, Miss Smith,” he directed.

As the typist went out, followed by Innes, Paul Harley found himself thinking of the photograph in Sir Charles Abingdon’s library and waiting with an almost feverish expectancy for the appearance of the original.