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

“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.”

Phil Abingdon looked at him doubtingly. “I am almost afraid to ask you,” she said in a low voice, “but—if you hear anything, will you ring me up?”

“I promise to do so.”

Chartering a more promising-looking cab than that in which he had come, Detective Inspector Wessex proceeded to 236 South Lambeth Road. He had knocked several times before the door was opened by the woman to whom the girl Jones had called on the occasion of Harley’s visit.

“I am a police officer,” said the detective inspector, “and I have called to see a woman named Jones, formerly in the employ of Sir Charles Abingdon.”

“Polly’s gone,” was the toneless reply.

“Gone? Gone where?”

“She went away last night to a job in the country.”

“What time last night?”

“I can’t remember the time. Just after a gentleman had called here to see her.”

“Someone from the police?”

“I don’t know. She seemed to be very frightened.”

“Were you present when he interviewed her?”

“No.”

“After he had gone, what did Polly do?”

“Sat and cried for about half an hour, then Sidney came for her.”

“Sidney?”

“Her boy—the latest one.”

“Describe Sidney.”

“A dark fellow, foreign.”

“French—German?”

“No. A sort of Indian, like.”

“Indian?” snapped Wessex. “What do you mean by Indian?”

“Very dark,” replied the woman without emotion, swinging a baby she held to and fro in a methodical way which the detective found highly irritating.

“You mean a native of India?”

“Yes, I should think so. I never noticed him much. Polly has so many.”

“How long has she known this man?”

“Only a month or so, but she is crazy about him.”

“And when he came last night she went away with him?”

“Yes. She was all ready to go before the other gentleman called. He must have told her something which made her think it was all off, and she was crazy with joy when Sidney turned up. She had all her things packed, and off she went.”

Experience had taught Detective Inspector Wessex to recognize the truth when he met it, and he did not doubt the statement of the woman with the baby. “Can you give me any idea where this man Sidney came from?” he asked.

“I am afraid I can’t,” replied the listless voice. “He was in the service of some gentleman in the country; that’s all I know about him.”

“Did Polly leave no address to which letters were to be forwarded?”

“No; she said she would write.”

“One other point,” said Wessex, and he looked hard into the woman’s face: “What do you know about Fire-Tongue?”

He was answered by a stare of blank stupidity.

“You heard me?”

“Yes, I heard you, but I don’t know what you are talking about.”

Quick decisions are required from every member of the Criminal Investigation Department, and Detective Inspector Wessex came to one now.

“That will do for the present,” he said, turned, and ran down the steps to the waiting cab.