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Page 19
Harley leaned forward, resting one hand upon the table. "I know I
was followed," he said, sternly. "I was followed because I have
entered upon the biggest case of my career." He paused and smiled
in a very grim fashion. "A suspicion begins to dawn upon my mind
that if I fail it will also be my last case. You understand me?"
"I understand absolutely," replied Nicol Brinn. "These are dull
days. It's meat and drink to me to smell big danger."
Paul Harley lighted a cigarette and watched the speaker closely
the while. His expression, as he did so, was an odd one. Two
courses were open to him, and he was mentally debating their
respective advantages.
"I have come to you to-night, Mr. Brinn," he said finally, "to
ask you a certain question. Unless the theory upon which I am
working is entirely wrong, then, supposing that you are in a
position to answer my question I am logically compelled to
suppose, also, that you stand in peril of your life."
"Good," said Mr. Brinn. "I was getting sluggish." In three long
strides he crossed the room and locked the door. "I don't doubt
Hoskins's honesty," he explained, reading the inquiry in Harley's
eyes, "but an A1 intelligence doesn't fold dress pants at
thirty-nine."
Only one very intimate with the taciturn speaker could have
perceived any evidence of interest in that imperturbable
character. But Nicol Brinn took his cheroot between his fingers,
quickly placed a cone of ash in a little silver tray (the work of
Benvenuto Cellini), and replaced the cheroot not in the left but
in the right corner of his mouth. He was excited.
"You are out after one of the big heads of the crook world," he
said. "He knows it and he's trailing you. My luck's turned. How
can I help?"
Harley stood up, facing Mr. Brinn. "He knows it, as you say," he
replied, "and I hold my life in my hands. But from your answer to
the question which I have come here to-night to ask you, I shall
conclude whether or not your danger at the moment is greater than
mine."
"Good," said Nicol Brinn.
In that unique room, at once library and museum, amid relics of a
hundred ages, spoil of the chase, the excavator, and the scholar,
these two faced each other; and despite the peaceful quiet of the
apartment up to which as a soothing murmur stole the homely
sounds of Piccadilly, each saw in the other's eyes recognition of
a deadly peril. It was a queer, memorable moment.
"My question is simple but strange," said Paul Harley. "It is
this: What do you know of 'Fire-Tongue'?"
CHAPTER V. THE GATES OF HELL
If Paul Harley had counted upon the word "Fire-Tongue" to have a
dramatic effect upon Nicol Brinn, he was not disappointed. It was
a word which must have conveyed little or nothing to the
multitude and which might have been pronounced without
perceptible effect at any public meeting in the land. But Mr.
Brinn, impassive though his expression remained, could not
conceal the emotion which he experienced at the sound of it. His
gaunt face seemed to grow more angular and his eyes to become
even less lustrous.
"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.
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