Fire-Tongue Page 4

  CHAPTER IV. INTRODUCING MR. NICOL BRINN

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

  The man at the window was interested in a car which, approaching fromthe direction of the Circus, had slowed down immediately opposite andnow was being turned, the chauffeur's apparent intention being to pullup at the door below. He had seen the face of the occupant and hadrecognized it even from that elevation. He was interested; and sinceonly unusual things aroused any semblance of interest in the man who nowstood at the window, one might have surmised that there was somethingunusual about the present visitor, or in his having decided to call atthose chambers; and that such was indeed his purpose an upward glancewhich he cast in the direction of the balcony sufficiently proved.

  The watcher, who had been standing in a dark recess formed by thepresence of heavy velvet curtains draped before the window, now openedthe curtains and stepped into the lighted room. He was a tall, lean manhaving straight, jet-black hair, a sallow complexion, and the featuresof a Sioux. A long black cigar protruded aggressively from the leftcorner of his mouth. His hands were locked behind him and his large andquite expressionless blue eyes stared straight across the room at theclosed door with a dreamy and vacant regard. His dinner jacket fittedhim so tightly that it might have been expected at any moment to splitat 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 spotlesslyneat and wore his light hair cropped close to the skull. Hisfresh-coloured face was quite as expressionless as that of his master;his glance possessed no meaning. Crossing to the window, he extended asmall salver upon which lay a visiting card.

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

  His servant silently retired, and following a short interval rappedagain upon the door, opened it, and standing just inside the roomannounced: "Mr. Paul Harley."

  The door being quietly closed behind him, Paul Harley stood staringacross the room at Nicol Brinn. At this moment the contrast betweenthe types was one to have fascinated a psychologist. About Paul Harley,eagerly alert, there was something essentially British. Nicol Brinn,without being typical, was nevertheless distinctly a product of theUnited States. Yet, despite the stoic mask worn by Mr. Brinn, whoselack-lustre eyes were so unlike the bright gray eyes of his visitor,there existed, if not a physical, a certain spiritual affinity betweenthe two; both were men of action.

  Harley, after that one comprehensive glance, the photographic glance ofa trained observer, stepped forward impulsively, hand outstretched. "Mr.Brinn," he said, "we have never met before, and it was good of you towait in for me. I hope my telephone message has not interfered with yourplans for the evening?"

  Nicol Brinn, without change of pose, no line of the impassive facealtering, shot out a large, muscular hand, seized that of Paul Harleyin a tremendous grip, and almost instantly put his hand behind his backagain. "Had no plans," he replied, in a high, monotonous voice; "I wasbored stiff. Take the armchair."

  Paul Harley sat down, but in the restless manner of one who has urgentbusiness in hand and who is impatient of delay. Mr. Brinn stooped to acoffee table which stood upon the rug before the large open fireplace."I am going to offer you a cocktail," he said.

  "I shall accept your offer," returned Harley, smiling. "The 'N. B.cocktail' has a reputation which extends throughout the clubs of theworld."

  Nicol Brinn, exhibiting the swift adroitness of that human dodo, theNew York bartender, mixed the drinks. Paul Harley watched him, meanwhiledrumming his fingers restlessly upon the chair arm.

  "Here's success," he said, "to my mission."

  It was an odd toast, but Mr. Brinn merely nodded and drank in silence.Paul Harley set his glass down and glanced about the singular apartmentof which he had often heard and which no man could ever tire ofexamining.

  In this room the poles met, and the most remote civilizations of theworld rubbed shoulders with modernity. Here, encased, were a family ofsnow-white ermine from Alaska and a pair of black Manchurian leopards.A flying lemur from the Pelews contemplated swooping upon the head ofa huge tigress which glared with glassy eyes across the place at thesnarling muzzle of a polar bear. Mycenaean vases and gold death masksstood upon the same shelf as Venetian goblets, and the mummy of anEgyptian priestess of the thirteenth dynasty occupied a sarcophagus uponthe top of which rested a basrelief found in one of the shrines of theSyrian fish goddess Derceto, at Ascalon.

  Arrowheads of the Stone Age and medieval rapiers were ranged alongsidesome of the latest examples of the gunsmith's art. There were elephants'tusks and Mexican skulls; a stone jar of water from the well of Zem-Zem,and an ivory crucifix which had belonged to Torquemada. A mat of humanhair from Borneo overlay a historical and unique rug woven in Ispahanand entirely composed of fragments of Holy Carpets from the Kaaba atMecca.

  "I take it," said Mr. Brinn, suddenly, "that you are up against a stiffproposition."

  Paul Harley, accepting a cigarette from an ebony box (once the propertyof Henry VIII) which the speaker had pushed across the coffee table inhis direction, stared up curiously into the sallow, aquiline face. "Youare right. But how did you know?"

  "You look that way. Also--you were followed. Somebody knows you've comehere."

  Harley leaned forward, resting one hand upon the table. "I know I wasfollowed," he said, sternly. "I was followed because I have enteredupon the biggest case of my career." He paused and smiled in a very grimfashion. "A suspicion begins to dawn upon my mind that if I fail it willalso 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 thewhile. His expression, as he did so, was an odd one. Two courses wereopen 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 acertain question. Unless the theory upon which I am working is entirelywrong, then, supposing that you are in a position to answer my questionI am logically compelled to suppose, also, that you stand in peril ofyour life."

  "Good," said Mr. Brinn. "I was getting sluggish." In three long strideshe crossed the room and locked the door. "I don't doubt Hoskins'shonesty," he explained, reading the inquiry in Harley's eyes, "but an A1intelligence doesn't fold dress pants at thirty-nine."

  Only one very intimate with the taciturn speaker could have perceivedany evidence of interest in that imperturbable character. But NicolBrinn took his cheroot between his fingers, quickly placed a cone of ashin a little silver tray (the work of Benvenuto Cellini), and replacedthe cheroot not in the left but in the right corner of his mouth. He wasexcited.

  "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," hereplied, "and I hold my life in my hands. But from your answer to thequestion which I have come here to-night to ask you, I shall concludewhether 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 ahundred ages, spoil of the chase, the excavator, and the scholar, thesetwo faced each other; and despite the peaceful quiet of the apartmentup to which as a soothing murmur stole the homely sounds o
f Piccadilly,each saw in the other's eyes recognition of a deadly peril. It was aqueer, memorable moment.

  "My question is simple but strange," said Paul Harley. "It is this: Whatdo you know of 'Fire-Tongue'?"