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Read books online » Fiction » Fire-Tongue by Sax Rohmer (the best electronic book reader txt) 📖

Book online «Fire-Tongue by Sax Rohmer (the best electronic book reader txt) đŸ“–Â». Author Sax Rohmer



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“You’re not hinting at—suicide?”

“Emphatically no.”

“What had he eaten?”

“Nothing but soup, except that he drank a portion of a glass of water. I am wondering if he took anything at Mr. Wilson’s house.” He stared hard at Doctor McMurdoch. “It may surprise you to learn that I have already taken steps to have the remains of the soup from Sir Charles’s plate examined, as well as the water in the glass. I now propose to call upon Mr. Wilson in order that I may complete this line of enquiry.”

“I sympathize with your suspicions, Mr. Harley,” said the physician dourly, “but you are wasting your time.” A touch of the old acidity crept back into his manner. “My certificate will be ‘syncope due to unusual excitement’; and I shall stand by it.”

“You are quite entitled to your own opinion,” Harley conceded, “which if I were in your place would be my own. But what do you make of the fact that Sir Charles received a bogus telephone message some ten minutes before my arrival, as a result of which he visited Mr. Wilson’s house?”

“But he’s attending Wilson,” protested the physician.

“Nevertheless, no one there had telephoned. It was a ruse. I don’t assume for a moment that this ruse was purposeless.”

Doctor McMurdoch was now staring hard at the speaker.

“You may also know,” Harley continued, “that there was an attempted burglary here less than a week ago.”

“I know that,” admitted the other, “but it counts for little. There have been several burglaries in the neighbourhood of late.”

Harley perceived that Doctor McMurdoch was one of those characters, not uncommon north of the Tweed, who, if slow in forming an opinion, once having done so cling to it as tightly as any barnacle.

“You may be right and I may be wrong,” Harley admitted, “but while your professional business with Sir Charles unfortunately is ended, mine is only beginning. May I count upon you to advise me of Miss Abingdon’s return? I particularly wish to see her, and I should prefer to meet her in the capacity of a friend rather than in that of a professional investigator.”

“At the earliest moment that I can decently arrange a meeting,” replied Doctor McMurdoch, “I will communicate with you, Mr. Harley. I am just cudgelling my brains at the moment to think how the news is to be broken to her. Poor little Phil! He was all she had.”

“I wish I could help you,” declared Harley with sincerity, “but in the circumstances any suggestion of mine would be mere impertinence.” He held out his hand to the doctor.

“Good-night,” said the latter, gripping it heartily. “If there is any mystery surrounding poor Abingdon’s death, I believe you are the man to clear it up. But, frankly, it was his heart. I believe he had a touch of the sun once in India. Who knows? His idea that some danger threatened him or threatened Phil may have been merely—” He tapped his brow significantly.

“But in the whole of your knowledge of Sir Charles,” cried Harley, exhibiting a certain irritation, “have you ever known him to suffer from delusions of that kind or any other?”

“Never,” replied the physician, firmly; “but once a man has had the sun one cannot tell.”

“Ah!” said Harley. “Good-night, Doctor McMurdoch.”

When presently he left the house, carrying a brown leather bag which he had borrowed from the butler, he knew that rightly or wrongly his own opinion remained unchanged in spite of the stubborn opposition of the Scottish physician. The bogus message remained to be explained, and the assault in the square, as did the purpose of the burglar to whom gold and silver plate made no appeal. More important even than these points were the dead man’s extraordinary words: “Fire-Tongue”—“Nicol Brinn.” Finally and conclusively, he had detected the note of danger outside and inside the house; and now as he began to cross the square it touched him again intimately.

He looked up at the darkened sky. A black cloud was moving slowly overhead, high above the roof of the late Sir Charles Abingdon; and as he watched its stealthy approach it seemed to Paul Harley to be the symbol of that dread in which latterly Sir Charles’s life had lain, beneath which he had died, and which now was stretching out, mysterious and menacing, over himself.





CHAPTER IV. INTRODUCING MR. NICOL BRINN

At about nine o’clock on the same evening, a man stood at a large window which overlooked Piccadilly and the Green Park. The room to which the window belonged was justly considered one of the notable sights of London and doubtless would have received suitable mention in the “Blue Guide” had the room been accessible to the general public. It was, on the contrary, accessible only to the personal friends of Mr. Nicol Brinn. As Mr. Nicol Brinn had a rarely critical taste in friendship, none but a fortunate few had seen the long room with its two large windows overlooking Piccadilly.

The man at the window was interested in a car which, approaching from the direction of the Circus, had slowed down immediately opposite and now was being turned, the chauffeur’s apparent intention being to pull up at the door below. He had seen the face of the occupant and had recognized it even from that elevation. He was interested; and since only unusual things aroused any semblance of interest in the man who now stood at the window, one might have surmised that there was something unusual about the present visitor, or in his having decided to call at those chambers; and that such was indeed his purpose an upward glance which he cast in the direction of the balcony sufficiently proved.

The watcher, who had been standing in a dark recess formed by the presence of heavy velvet curtains draped before the window, now opened the curtains and stepped into the lighted room. He was a tall, lean man having straight, jet-black hair, a sallow complexion, and the features of a Sioux. A long black cigar protruded aggressively from the left corner of his mouth. His hands were locked behind him and his large and quite expressionless blue eyes stared straight across the room at the closed door with a dreamy and vacant regard. His dinner jacket fitted him so tightly that it might have been expected at any moment to split at the seams. As if to precipitate the catastrophe, he wore it buttoned.

There came a rap at the door.

“In!” said the tall man.

The door opened silently and a manservant appeared. He was spotlessly neat and wore his light hair cropped close to the skull. His fresh-coloured face was quite as expressionless as that of his master; his glance possessed no meaning. Crossing to the window, he extended a small salver upon which lay a visiting card.

“In!” repeated the tall man, looking down at the card.

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