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Page 52
"Shortest way," drawled Nicol Brinn. "Don't study me."
"Thanks," said Wessex, "I'll do my best. It's like this"--he
stared frankly at the impassive face: "Where is Mr. Paul Harley?"
Nicol Brinn gazed at the lighted end of his cigar meditatively
for a moment and then replaced it in the right and not in the
left corner of his mouth. Even to the trained eye of the
detective inspector he seemed to be quite unmoved, but one who
knew him well would have recognized that this simple action
betokened suppressed excitement.
"He left these chambers at ten-fifteen on Wednesday night,"
replied the American. "I had never seen him before and I have
never seen him since."
"Sure?"
"Quite."
"Could you swear to it before a jury?"
"You seem to doubt my word."
Detective Inspector Wessex stood up. "Mr. Brinn," he said, "I am
in an awkward corner. I know you for a man with a fine sporting
reputation, and therefore I don't doubt your word. But Mr. Paul
Harley disappeared last night."
At last Nicol Brinn was moved. A second time he took the cigar
from his mouth, gazed at the end reflectively, and then hurled
the cigar across the room into the hearth. He stood up, walked to
a window, and stared out. "Just sit quiet a minute," came the
toneless voice. "You've hit me harder than you know. I want to
think it out."
At the back of the tall, slim figure Detective Inspector Wessex
stared with a sort of wonder. Mr. Nicol Brinn of Cincinnati was a
conundrum which he found himself unable to catalogue, although in
his gallery of queer characters were many eccentric and peculiar.
If Nicol Brinn should prove to be crooked, then automatically he
became insane. This Wessex had reasoned out even before he had
set eyes upon the celebrated American traveller. His very first
glimpse of Nicol Brinn had confirmed his reasoning, except that
the cool, calm strength of the man had done much to upset the
theory of lunacy.
Followed an interval of unbroken silence. Not even the ticking of
a clock could be heard in that long, singularly furnished
apartment. Then, as the detective continued to gaze upon the back
of Mr. Nicol Brinn, suddenly the latter turned.
"Detective Inspector Wessex," he said, "there has been a cloud
hanging over my head for seven years. That cloud is going to
burst very soon, and it looks as if it were going to do damage."
"I don't understand you, sir," replied the detective, bluntly.
"But I have been put in charge of the most extraordinary case
that has ever come my way and I'll ask you to make yourself as
clear as possible."
"I'll do all I can," Nicol Brinn assured him. "But first tell me
something: Why have you come to me for information in respect to
Mr. Paul Harley?"
"I'll answer your question," said Wessex, and the fact did not
escape the keen observing power of Nicol Brinn that the
detective's manner had grown guarded. "He informed Mr. Innes, his
secretary, before setting out, that he was coming here to your
chambers."
Nicol Brinn stared blankly at the speaker. "He told him that?
When?"
"Yesterday."
"That he was coming here?"
"He did."
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