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Page 29
Anger threatened him--as it had threatened him when he had
realized that Nicol Brinn meant to remain silent. He combated it,
for it had no place in the judicial mind of the investigator. But
he recognized its presence with dismay. Where Phil Abingdon was
concerned he could not trust himself. In her glance, too, and in
the manner of her answers to questions concerning the Oriental,
there was a provoking femininity--a deliberate and baffling
intrusion of the eternal Eve.
He stared questioningly across at Doctor McMurdoch and perceived
a sudden look of anxiety in the physician's face. Quick as the
thought which the look inspired, he turned to Phil Abingdon.
She was sitting quite motionless in the big armchair, and her
face had grown very pale. Even as he sprang forward he saw her
head droop.
"She has fainted," said Doctor McMurdoch. "I'm not surprised."
"Nor I," replied Harley. "She should not have come."
He opened the door communicating with his private apartments and
ran out. But, quick as he was, Phil Abingdon had recovered before
he returned with the water for which he had gone. Her reassuring
smile was somewhat wan. "How perfectly silly of me!" she said. "I
shall begin to despise myself."
Presently he went down to the street with his visitors.
"There must be so much more you want to know, Mr. Harley," said
Phil Abingdon. "Will you come and see me?"
He promised to do so. His sentiments were so strangely complex
that he experienced a desire for solitude in order that he might
strive to understand them. As he stood at the door watching the
car move toward the Strand he knew that to-day he could not count
upon his intuitive powers to warn him of sudden danger. But he
keenly examined the faces of passers-by and stared at the
occupants of those cabs and cars which were proceeding in the
same direction as the late Sir Charles Abingdon's limousine.
No discovery rewarded him, however, and he returned upstairs to
his office deep in thought. "I am in to nobody," he said as he
passed the desk at which Innes was at work.
"Very good, Mr. Harley."
Paul Harley walked through to the private office and, seating
himself at the big, orderly table, reached over to a cupboard
beside him and took out a tin of smoking mixture. He began very
slowly to load his pipe, gazing abstractedly across the room at
the tall Burmese cabinet.
He realized that, excepting the extraordinary behaviour and the
veiled but significant statements of Nicol Brinn, his theory that
Sir Charles Abingdon had not died from natural causes rested upon
data of the most flimsy description. From Phil Abingdon he had
learned nothing whatever. Her evidence merely tended to confuse
the case more hopelessly.
It was sheer nonsense to suppose that Ormuz Khan, who was
evidently interested in the girl, could be in any way concerned
in the death of her father. Nevertheless, as an ordinary matter
of routine, Paul Harley, having lighted his pipe, made a note on
a little block:
Cover activities of Ormuz Khan.
He smoked reflectively for a while and then added another note:
Watch Nicol Brinn.
For ten minutes or more he sat smoking and thinking, his unseeing
gaze set upon the gleaming lacquer of the cabinet; and presently,
as he smoked, he became aware of an abrupt and momentary chill.
His sixth sense was awake again. Taking up a pencil, he added a
third note:
Watch yourself. You are in danger.
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