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by Sax Rohmer

January, 1998 [Etext #1159]
[Date last updated: July 15, 2005]

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By Sax Rohmer




Some of Paul Harley's most interesting cases were brought to his
notice in an almost accidental way. Although he closed his office
or theatre, fate would sometimes cast in his path the first
slender thread which was ultimately to lead him into some
unsuspected labyrinth, perhaps in the underworld of London,
perhaps in a city of the Far East.

His investigation of the case of the man with the shaven skull
meeting with Major Jack Ragstaff of the Cavalry Club, a meetin g
to the unmasking of perhaps the most cunning murderer in the
annals of crime.

One summer's evening when the little clock upon his table was
chair and stared meditatively across his private office in the
direction of a large and very handsome Burmese cabinet, which
seemed strangely out of place amid the filing drawers,
bookshelves, and other usual impedimenta of a pr ofessional man. A
peculiarly uninteresting week was drawing to a close, and he was
wondering if this betokened a decreased activity in the higher
criminal circles, or whether it was merely one of those usual
quiescent periods which characterize every form of warfare.

occupied something of the position of an unofficial field marshal
of the forces arrayed against evildoers. Throughout the war he
had undertaken confidential work of the highest importance,
especially in regard to the Near East, with which he was
court of appeal to which Home Office and Foreign Office alike
unassuming premises in Chancery Lane conveyed little or nothing
to the uninitiated.

The man himself, with his tropical bronze and air of eager
vitality, must have told the most careless observer that he stood
in the presence of an extraordinary personality. He was slightly
physically fit, and possessed of an intellectual keenness which
had forced recognition from two hemispheres. His office was part
six, he pressed a bell which summoned Innes, his confidential


have to resume practice at the bar."

Paul Harley laughed.
shall retire to Norfolk and devote my declining years to



coming in with it when you rang."

Paul Harley glanced at the card.

his secretary. "That is the osteologist?"



Innes retiring, there presently entered a distinguished -looking,
elderly gentleman upon whose florid face rested an expression not
unlike that of embarrassment.

case comes within your particular province."

your visit beyond a chat it will have been very welcome.
Calcutta, was it not, where we last met?"

table and sitting down rather wearily in a big leather armchair
which Harley had pushed forward. "If I presume upon so sligh t an

peculiarly searching look which belongs to members of his
profession; but mingled with it was an expression of almost
pathetic appeal, of appeal for understanding, for sympathy of
some kind.

cigars. "Will you smoke?"

"Thanks, no," was the answer.

Sir Charles evidently was oppressed by some secret trouble, thus
In this he desired to convey that he treated the v isit as that of
might without scruple speak at length and at leisure of whatever
matters had brought him there.

very scanty and unsatisfactory."

Paul Harley nodded encouragingly.


recover confidence.



"I do."

have fairly substantial grounds for such a suspicion?"

"I cannot say that they are substantial, Mr. Har ley. They are
rather more circumstantial. Frankly, I have forced myself to come
my difficulties more keenly than ever."

The expression of embarrassment upon the speaker's face had grown
hearer, and Harley, lighting his pipe, nodded in understanding
He had learned by bitter experience that lightly to dismiss such
cases as this of Sir Charles as coming within the province of
delusion, was sometimes tantamount to refusing aid to a man in
deadly peril.

"You are naturally anxious for the particulars," Sir Charles
resemblance to the symptoms of a well-known form of
hallucination. In short, with one exception, they may practically
all be classed under the head of surveillance."

less constantly followed?"

"I do."

"And what is your impression of this follower?"


"You came in a car?"

"I did."

"And a cab followed you the whole way?"

"Practically the whole way, except that as my chauffeur turned
into Chancery Lane, the cab stopped at the corner of Fleet

"Your idea is that your pursuer followed on foot from this

"Such was my impression."


"It has been for some time past."

"Anything else?"


awakening curiosity. Sir Charles Abingdon was not the type of man
who is lightly intimidated.

continued, "whom I am at present attending professionally,
although I am actually retired. I was returning across the
detected the sound of light, pattering footsteps immediately
He was holding in his hand what looked like a large silk
handkerchief. This encounter took place in the shadow of some
could form no impression of his identity."
"What did you do?"

"I turned and struck out with my stick."

"And then?"


drug you?"

to strangle me."

"And you formed absolutely no impression of the man?"

the difficulties. It is perfectly dark there after nightfall."

possibility that this may have been an ordinary footpad."


may say so."

are right."


for this unpleasant business."

must be some data in your possession which suggest to your mind
that he has some connection with it."

could visit my house this evening, when I could place this
company at dinner."
Paul Harley seemed to be reflecting.

very interesting and curious, and I shall naturally make a point
of going fully into the matter. But before proceeding further
behind all this?"

opportunity of rearranging the facts before imparting them to
less than a week ago."


where there are several cases of Oriental jewellery and a number
cannot imagine. All the doors were locked as usual in the mo rning
and nothing was disturbed."

"I don't understand, then."

were disarranged. Close examination revealed the fact that a
the pigeonholes, was missing."


which I had vaguely contemplated publishing in one of the
reviews, a brief account of a very extraordinary patient whom I
once attended."

"And had you written it recently?"

object I had actually unlocked the bureau."

"New facts respecting this patient had come into your
"They had."

"Before the date of the attack upon you?"

"Before that date, yes."

"And before surveillance of your movements began?"

"I believe so."

you referred are one and the same?"

arrange my facts in some sort of historical order. Therefore I


That his ready acceptance had immensely relieved the troubled
conviction has been growing upon me for some time that I have
incurred, how I cannot imagine, but that nevertheless I have
incurred powerful enmity. I trust our evening's counsel may
enable you, with your highly specialized faculties, to detect an

found himself temporarily relieved of the necessity of confessing
the source of his mysterious fears.


along the Strand."

Glancing neither right nor left, he entered the car, and
presently they were proceeding slowly with the stream of traffic
the tube.

The car slowed down in that little bay which contains the
window, observing the occupants of all other cars and cabs which
were following. For three minutes or more he remained there
watching. "Go on," he directed.

Again they proceeded westward and, half-way along Piccadilly,
"Stop at the Ritz," came the order.

dismissed the man and entered the hotel, walked through to the
faces he had scrutinized had he detected any interest in himself,
so that his idea that whoever was watching Sir Charles in all
probability would have transferred attention to himself remained
Charles's theory might be no more than a delusion after all.

The house of Sir Charles Abingdon was one of those small,
discreet establishments, the very neatness of whose appointments
inspires respect for the occupant. If anything had occurred
during the journey to suggest to Harley that Sir Charles was
indeed under observation by a hidden enemy, the suave British
security and prosperity of his residence must have destroyed the

curtained windows. In the interval which had elapsed since Sir
Charles's departure from his office, he had had leisure to survey
the outstanding features of the story, and, discounting in his
absence the pathetic sincerity of the narrator, he had formed the
opinion that there was nothing in the account which was not
susceptible of an ordinary prosaic explanation.

Sir Charles's hesitancy in regard to two of the questions asked
had contained a hint that they might involve intimate personal
distinguished surgeon's dread lay in some unrevealed episode of
experienced an investigator to formulate theories until all the
facts were in his possession. Therefore it was with keen interest
that he looked forward to the interview.

evasive, fickle thing, but was nevertheless the attribute which
had made him an investigator of genius. Often enough it failed
followed him from Chancery Lane.

watched from the office window Sir Charles's car proceeding
lowering of the temperature, which often advised him of the
nearness of malignant activity, had not been experienced.

atmosphere keenly--seeking for the note of danger.

now, although rain had ceased, the sky remained blackly overcast
freshness and the glistening pavements looked delightfully cool
doubt, it was always restful in contrast with the more busy
highroads, and in the murmur of distant traffic he found
something very soothing. About him then were peace, prosperity,
and security.

the premature dusk. The whole complexion of the matter changed.
Some menace intangible now, but which at any moment might become
convinced him.

no longer touched Paul Harley. Out from the doorway came hominess
and that air of security and peace which had seemed to
characterize the house when viewed from outside. The focus of

"Mr. Paul Harley?" said the butler tentatively.

"Yes, I am he."

in to receive you, but he will only be absent a few minutes."

hat and coat to the man.

requesting Sir Charles to step across."

but well-filled library on the left of the lobby.

Refreshments were set invitingly upon a table beside a deep
lounge chair. But Harley declined the man's request to refresh
himself while waiting and began aimlessly to wander about the
room, apparently studying the titles of the works crowding the
subject it is improbable that he could have mentioned the title
of one book in the library.
His mental equipment was of a character too rarely met with in
of reaching Sir Charles's house he had doubted the reality of the
menace which hung over this man, the note of danger which he h ad
sensed at the very threshold had convinced him, where more
ordinary circumstantial evidence might have left him in doubt.

It was perhaps pure imagination, but experience had taught him
that it was closely allied to clairvoyance.

Now upon his musing there suddenly intruded sounds of a muffled
deference to the presence of a visitor. Harley was only mildly
when presently the door opened to admit a very neat but rather
a smile.

housekeeper, for this her appearance proclaimed her to be, bowed
in a queer Victorian fashion which suggested that a curtsy might

"That's quite all right," said Harley, genially.

His smile held a hint of amusement, for in the comprehensive
conceal itself, there remained a trace of that grimness which he
still bristling from a recent encounter. So much so that
detecting something sympathetic in Harley's smile she availed
herself of the presence of a badly arranged vase of flowers to
linger and to air her grievances.


"Unfortunately, that is so," Harley agreed.

goodness, she goes to-morrow, though."


"Gracious goodness, no!" exclaimed the housekeeper, and laughed
than three months."

something of a martinet.

at the house; and finally I discover her upsetting the table

She glanced indignantly in the direction of the lobby. "P erhaps
evening, sir."

recipient of these domestic confidences.

He continued to smile for some time after the door had been
this he was not ungrateful to the housekeeper, since the
outstanding disadvantage of that strange gift resembling
prescience was that it sometimes blunted the purely analytical
judge impartially of its evidential value.

Wandering from side to side of the library, he presently found
himself standing still before the mantelpiece and studying a
photograph in a silver frame which occupied the centre of the

questioning look in her eyes which was alluring and challenging.
Her naive expression was palpably a pose, and her slightly parted
lips promised laughter. She possessed delightfully wavy hair and
Harley discovered himself to be smiling at the naive lady of the

"Presumably 'Miss Phil'," he said aloud.

He removed his gaze with reluctance from the fascinating picture,
Charles's voice in the lobby, and a moment later Sir Charles
himself came hurrying into the library. His expression was so
peculiar that Harley started up immediately, perceiving that
something unusual had happened.
accept my apologies--"

"None are necessary," Harley interrupted. "Your excellent
housekeeper has entertained me vastly."

elsewhere. "But I have to relate a most inexplicable
occurrence--inexplicable unless by some divine accident the plan
has been prevented from maturing."

"What do you mean, Sir Charles?"

have been attending."

"So your butler informed me."

the matter!"

"What! It was a ruse?"

"Palpably a ruse to get me away from home."

Harley dropped his cigarette into the ash tray beside the match,
library. Whether because of his words or because of the presence
of the man himself, the warning, intuitive finger had again
the square to suggest that any one having designs on your safety
was watching you?"

"Nothing. I searched the shadows most particularly on my return


Between the promptings of that uncanny sixth sense of his and the
working of the trained deductive reasoning powers, he was
clamouring for recognition, while the intuitive, subconscious
because of his impotence to grasp it.

Sir Charles was staring at him in that curiously pathetic way
which he had observed at their earlier interview in Chancery
have kept you waiting."
cosy dining room. A dreadful premonition had claimed him as his
first, the atmosphere of Sir Charles Abingdon's home had been
laden with prosperous security, now from every side, and even
penetrating to the warmly lighted dining room, came that chilling
note of danger.

many Indian curios in the place which could not well have failed
had penetrated to the house was no common burglar he was now
assured and he required no further evidence upon this point.

Charles's collection had overflowed even into this room. In the
warm shadows about him were pictures and ornaments, all of which

In this Oriental environment lay an inspiration. The terror which
had come into Sir Charles's life, the invisible menace which,

surly-looking maid, in whom Harley thought he recognized the
housekeeper's bete noire.

When presently both servants had temporarily retired. "You see,
far that it was almost impossible to acquaint you with it under
the circumstances."

"I quite understand."

have a daughter. Her mother has been dead for ma ny years, and
perhaps I have not given her the attention which a motherless
this seeming preamble may prove to have a direct bearing upon
what I propose to tell you?"

explain the matter now. To continue, there is a certain
distinguished Oriental gentleman--"

He paused as Benson appeared to remove the soup plates.


Paul Harley, who fully appreciated the purpose of this abrupt
it can understand and appreciate all it means."

The butler, an excellently trained servant, went about his work
with quiet efficiency, and once Harley heard him mutter rapid
instructions to the surly parlourmaid, who hovered disdainfully
in the background. When again host and guest found themselves
serviette to his lips and almost immediately resumed: "I was

that his hand was shaking nervously. He thought of the photograph
Oriental gentleman, he suddenly perceived the possible drift of
the conversation.

This was the point to which Sir Charles evidently experienced
such difficulty in coming. It was something which concerned his
daughter; and, mentally visualizing the pure oval fac e and
taunting eyes of the library photograph, Harley found it
impossible to believe that the evil which threatened Sir Charles
could possibly be associated in any way with Phyllis Abingdon.

responsible for his present condition, then   truly it was a
said, "I beg--"

pass," he whispered.


latter, evidently enough, was in the throes of some sudden
illness or seizure. His fresh-coloured face was growing
twitching fingers. As Harley reached his side he made a sudden


There came a sound of swift footsteps and the door was thrown

clutch his throat as Benson hurried into the room.


saw some ghastly apparition there. And now with appalling
suddenness he became as a dead weight in Harley's supporting


Benson, white and terror-stricken, bent over him.

matter, sir?"

Howett, the old housekeeper, with other servants peering over her
shoulder into that warmly lighted dining room where Sir Charles
Abingdon lay huddled in his own chair--dead.


"Had you reason to suspect any cardiac trouble, Doctor
McMurdoch?" asked Harley.

Doctor McMurdoch, a local practitioner who had been a friend of
preternaturally thin Scotsman, clean-shaven, with shaggy dark
the presence of his sepulchral figure seemed appropriate enough
in that stricken house, Harley could not help thinking that it
must have been far from reassuring in a sick room.

physician, and his deep voice was gloomily in keeping with his
personality. "I had observed a certain breathlessness at times,
however. No doubt it is one of those cases of unsu spected
interrogatively, "that nothing had occurred to excite Sir

confide to me when this sudden illness seized him."

He stared hard at Doctor McMurdoch, wondering how much he might
seemed almost impertinent at that hour to seek to pry into t he
dead man's private life.

significant sounds which told of the tragedy in the household.
a weeping woman, for the poor old housekeeper had been quite
prostrated by the blow. Or ghostly movements would become audible
dead man had been carried; muffled footsteps, vague stirrings of
furniture; each sound laden with its own peculiar portent,
awakening the imagination which all too readily filled in the
the thought that Sir Charles Abingdon had appealed to him for
aid. Did his need terminate with his unexpected death or would
the shadow under which he had died extend now? Harley found himself
staring across the library at the photograph of Phil Abingdon.
It was of her that Sir Charles had been speaking when that
mysterious seizure had tied his tongue. That strange, fatal
almost but not quite been made in Harley's office that evening.
Something, some embarrassment or mental disability, had stopped
Sir Charles from completing his statement. Tonight death had
stopped him.


abruptly, "that Miss Abingdon is out of town?"

staying in Devonshire with poor Abingdon's sister," he answered.

Perceiving that Doctor McMurdoch had clearly been intimate with
the late Sir Charles, Harley determined to make use of this
opportunity to endeavour to fathom the mystery of the late
surgeon's fears. "You will not misunderstand me, Doctor
personal questions respecting Miss Abingdon?"
Doctor McMurdoch lowered his shaggy brows and looked gloomily at
answer one of mine?"


death of your client?"

the contrary, I find myself in a delicate and embarrassing
situation. From Sir Charles's conversation I had gathered that he
entertained certain fears on behalf of his daughter."

"Indeed," said Doctor McMurdoch.

but merely increased by the death of Miss Abingdon's natural
since you have misjudged my motive. But far from my interest
duty to learn what it was that Sir Charles apprehended. This

a little strange."

His apology was so evidently sincere that Harley relented at
have spoken the truth."


humanly possible I am going to discover its cause."

he poured out two liberal portions of whiskey. "If there's
he had fears about little Phil?"
his gaze upon the gloomy face of the physician--"who is the
distinguished Oriental gentleman with whom Sir Charles had
recently become acquainted?"

Doctor McMurdoch's expression remained utterly blank, and he
declared. "A patient, perhaps?"

numbered several Orientals among his acquaintances if not among
his friends?"

rested his massive chin in his hand and stared down reflectively
at the carpet.



you aware of any difference of opinion which had arisen latterly
between Sir Charles and his daughter?"

"Difference of opinion!" replied Doctor McMurdoch, raising his
brows ironically. "There would always be difference of opinion
between little Phil and any man who cared for her. But
out-and-out quarrel--no!"

hope of success that he put his third question to the gloomy

mean the American millionaire? I believe they were acquainted.
Abingdon knew most of the extraordinary people in London; and if

convey anything to your mind?"

Doctor McMurdoch's eyebrows shot upward most amazingly. "I won't
insult you by supposing that you have chosen such a time for
Charles Abingdon uttered."

"What!" cried Doctor McMurdoch, displaying a sudden surprising
energy. "What?"

Benson, the butler, also overheard them."

Doctor McMurdoch relapsed once more into gloom, gazing at the
had a temperature?"

quickly left his face, which became again grim and stern.

A short silence ensued, during which Doctor McMurdoch sat staring
moodily down at the carpet and Harley slowly paced up and down
the room; then:

clearly apprehended an attempt upon his life, are you satisfied
professionally that death was due to natural causes?"

play? I understood you to mean that his apprehensions were on
behalf of Phil."

Paul Harley stood still, staring meditatively in the other's
poisonous agent which would produce effects simulating these

one want to harm Charley Abingdon? When could poison have been
administered and by whom?"

"You're not hinting at--suicide?"

"Emphatically no."

"What had he eaten?"

complete this line of enquiry."


make of the fact that Sir Charles received a bogus telephone
he visited Mr. Wilson's house?"

"But he's attending Wilson," protested the physician.

don't assume for a moment that this ruse was purposeless."

Doctor McMurdoch was now staring hard at the speaker.

attempted burglary here less than a week ago."

There have been several burglaries in the neighbourhood of late."

Harley perceived that Doctor McMurdoch was one of those
any barnacle.

while your professional business with Sir Charles unfortunately
than in that of a professional investigator."


in the circumstances any suggestion of mine would be mere
impertinence." He held out his hand to the doctor.

any mystery surrounding poor Abingdon's death, I believe you are
some danger threatened him or threatened Phil may have been
merely--" He tapped his brow significantly.

to suffer from delusions of that kind or any other?"

the sun one cannot tell."


When presently he left the house, carrying a brown leather bag
wrongly his own opinion remained unchanged in spite of the
stubborn opposition of the Scottish physician. The bogus message
appeal. More important even than these points were the dead man's
conclusively, he had detected the note of danger outside and
touched him again intimately.

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
stretching out, mysterious and menacing, over himself.


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
had a rarely critical taste in friendship, none but a fortunate
few had seen the long room with its two large windows overlooking

from the direction of the Circus, had slowed down immediately
opposite and now was being turned, the chauffeur's apparent
face of the occupant and had recognized it even from that
elevation. He was interested; and since only unusual things
window, one might have surmised that there was something unusual
those chambers; and that such was indeed his purpose an upward
glance which he cast in the direction of the balcony sufficiently

presence of heavy velvet curtains draped before the window, now
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


His servant silently retired, and following a short interval
the room announced: "Mr. Paul Harley."

The door being quietly closed behind him, Paul Harley stood
staring across the room at Nicol Brinn. At this moment the
contrast between the 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 the United
affinity between the two; both were men of action.

Harley, after that one comprehensive glance, the photographic
glance of a trained observer, stepped forward impulsively, hand
message has not interfered with your plans for the evening?"

Paul Harley in a tremendous grip, and almost instantly put his

stooped to a coffee table which stood upon the rug before the

B. cocktail' has a reputation which extends throughout the clubs
of the world."

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


silence. Paul Harley set his glass down and glanced about the
singular apartment of which he had often heard and which no man
could ever tire of examining.

Manchurian leopards. A flying lemur from the Pelews contemplated
swooping upon the head of a huge tigress which glared with glassy
Mycenaean vases and gold death masks stood upon the same shelf as
Venetian goblets, and the mummy of an Egyptian priestess of the
thirteenth dynasty occupied a sarcophagus upon the top of which
goddess Derceto, at Ascalon.

Arrowheads of the Stone Age and medieval rapiers were ranged
alongside some of the latest examples of the gunsmith's art.
historical and unique rug woven in Ispahan and entirely composed
of fragments of Holy Carpets from the Kaaba at Mecca.

stiff proposition."

property of Henry VIII) which the speaker had pushed across the
coffee table in his direction, stared up curiously into the

you've come here."



Paul Harley lighted a cigarette and watched the speaker closely
courses were open to him, and he was mentally debating their
respective advantages.

position to answer my question I am logically compelled to

Hoskins's honesty," he explained, reading the inquiry in Harley's
eyes, "but an A1 intelligence doesn't fold dress pants at

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,
in the right corner of his mouth. He was excited.

can I help?"

conclude whether or not your danger at the moment is greater than

"Good," said Nicol Brinn.

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.

this: What do you know of 'Fire-Tongue'?"


a word which must have conveyed little or nothing to the
multitude and which might have been pronounced without
Brinn, impassive though his expression remained, could not
gaunt face seemed to grow more angular and his eyes to become
even less lustrous.

God's sake, when did you hear that word?"

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

connected with your case?"

few moments before he died."

Nicol Brinn's drooping lids flickered rapidly. "Before he died!

fixed gaze from the other's face.

"Go on," prompted Mr. Brinn.
"And 'Nicol Brinn.'"

rigidity in his pose did he reward Paul Harley's intense
scrutiny. A silence charged with drama was finally broken by the

and upon whose decision respecting the future that life may
depend. Paul Harley watched him in silence.

to-night, Mr. Harley?"

finger, that warning note of danger had reached him again.


omitting all reference to his personal suspicions and to the
measures which he had taken to confirm them.

He laid his cards upon the table deliberately. Whether Sir
Charles Abingdon had uttered the name of Nicol Brinn as that of
learn. And by this apparent frankness he hoped to achieve his
object. That the celebrated American was in any way concerned in
the menace which had overhung Sir Charles he was not prepared to
believe. But he awaited with curiosity that explanation which
Nicol Brinn must feel called upon to offer.



am the most hopelessly puzzled and badly frightened man in

"Frightened?" asked Harley, curiously.

to be able to express any opinion respecting the death of Sir
the last to pass his lips."
standing before the fireplace staring down at him.

presently when I had pulled round he gave me his card.

fortnight ago."

"that's all I know about Sir Charles Abingdon."

of your statement that you were also frightened. Why?"

Nicol Brinn glanced rapidly about his own luxurious room in an
meant it."



the significance of that term?"

tapping the edge of the fender.

a perceptible pause before he pronounced the word, which Harley

"He did."

"And what reason did he give for his inquiry?"

to look before he leaped, I am that man."

realized that this indeed was the most hopelessly mystifying case
which fate had ever thrown in his way. This millionaire scholar
and traveller, whose figure was as familiar in r emote cities of
London, could not conceivably be associated with any criminal
organization. Yet his hesitancy was indeed difficult to explain,
and because it seemed to Harley that the cloud whi ch had stolen
out across the house of Sir Charles Abingdon now hung
threateningly over those very chambers, he merely waited and

came Nicol Brinn's belated reply.



"You can't?"


believe and I think that you share my belief that Sir Charles
Abingdon did not die from natural causes. You are repressing
valuable evidence. Allow me to remind you that if anything should
come to light necessitating a post-mortem examination of the
facts which you refuse to divulge to me."

"I know it," said Brinn, shortly.

He shot out one long arm and grasped Harley's sh oulder as in a
think I'm in possession of facts which would help you find out
who is. You're right."

his grip from Harley's shoulder. "Inanimate things look like
enemies. That mummy over yonder may have ears!"

"I'm afraid I don't altogether understand you."

"See here!"

watched him curiously, sought among a number of press cuttings.
was said in confidence. But some disguised reporter had got in

Paul Harley accepted the cutting and read the following:


prominent citizen, responding to a toast, "the distinguished
visitor," said:

desert island like Robinson Crusoe to see if I am man e nough to

the coffee table.

Something happened to me seven years ago--"

"In India?"

with death and hoping to fall!"


have told me something tonight which makes me think that it isn't

That Nicol Brinn was deeply moved no student of humanity could
have doubted. From beneath the stoic's cloak another than the
dare-devil millionaire whose crazy exploits were notorious had
Those luxurious Piccadilly chambers were a focus upon which some
malignant will was concentrated. He became conscious of anger. It
of Prometheus bound.

theory that Sir Charles Abingdon was done to death has become a
conviction. That a like fate threatens yourself and possibly

Nicol Brinn dropped his chin into his hand and resumed that
unseeing stare into the open grate. Paul Harley watched him

that road before poor Abingdon."

He suddenly stood up, all at once exhibiting to his watchful
visitor that tremendous nervous energy which underlay his
He ceased speaking abruptly, and stood with his elbow resting on
a corner of the mantelpiece.

with your mysterious difficulties to inform me to what you


Silence fell in the big room, Nicol Brinn staring down vacantly
into the empty fireplace, Paul Harley standing watching him in a
state of almost stupefied mystification. Muffled to a soothing
murmur the sounds of Piccadilly penetrated to th at curtained
chamber which held so many records of the troubled past and which
seemed to be charged with shadowy portents of the future.

There followed a faint, sibilant sound.

Paul Harley started and the stoical Nicol Brinn turned rapidly
and glanced across the room.

"What was that?" asked Harley.

over from the Green Park."

Harley that his face, dimly illuminated by the upcast light from


On the following afternoon Paul Harley was restlessly pacing his
private office when Innes came in with a letter which had been
delivered by hand. Harley took it eagerly and tore open the
envelope. A look of expectancy faded from his eager face almost
foreign body in the liquids analyzed."

He dropped the analyst's report into a wastebasket and resumed
his restless promenade. Innes, who could see that his principal
clue to a labyrinth evaded him, to outline his difficulties to
his confidential secretary, and by the mere exercise of verbal
construction Harley would often detect the weak spot in his
reasoning. This stage come to, he would dictate a carefully
worded statement of the case to date and thus familiarize himself
with its complexities.

refreshment of any kind at Mr. Wilson's house nor before leaving
Since he was never out of my observation from the moment of
touched nothing else."

"No wine?"

what evidence, capable of being put into writing, exists to
support my theory that Sir Charles was poisoned. In the first
from Sir Charles's dying words, and his questioning Nicol Brinn
on the point some weeks earlier.

in India. This item we owe to Nicol Brinn.

some thing or person unknown, associated with India and with the
night under circumstances suggesting that burglary was not the
murderous intent. Thirdly, he believed himself to be subjected to
failing several times I myself detected someone dogging my
movements last night at the moment I entered Nicol Brinn's
chambers. Nicol Brinn also saw this person.

death, receiving close attention from some mysterious person or
gone beyond established facts, Innes, thus far?"


clear up when the evidence of Miss Abingdon becomes
meaning of Fire-Tongue?"


"If this were so he would scarcely have awaited a chance
encounter to prosecute his inquiries, since Nicol Brinn is a
several years."


much damaged?'"

Brinn into the scheme."

item of evidence substantiating my theory of Sir Charles's
murder: Nicol Brinn believes he was murdered. Nicol Brinn has
refuses to open his mouth."

"He is afraid of something."

prefers to court arrest for complicity in a murder rather than
tell what he knows!"

"It's unbelievable."


Paul Harley checked his steps in front of the watchful secretary
and gazed keenly into his eyes.

Nicol Brinn is that man. In such a case and in s uch circumstances
what do we look for?"

Innes shook his head.

"We look for the woman!" snapped Paul Harley.

"Miss Phil Abingdon and Doctor McMurdoch," she said.

himself thinking of the photograph in Sir Charles Abingdon's
library and waiting with an almost feverish expectancy for the
appearance of the original.

Almost immediately Phil Abingdon came in, accompanied by the
sepulchral Doctor McMurdoch. And Harley found himself wondering
whether her eyes were really violet-coloured or whether intense
emotion heroically repressed had temporarily lent them that

Surprise was the predominant quality of his first impression. Sir
Charles Abingdon's daughter was so exceedingly vital--petite and
slender, yet instinct with force. The seeming repose of the
photograph was misleading. That her glance could be naive he
a sadness so deep as to dispel the impression of lightness
fascinating, wavy, red-brown hair.

time to procure it. She was exquisitely and fashionably dressed,
He was surprised to find her lovely.

Doctor McMurdoch stood silent in the doorway, saying nothing by
way of introduction. But nothing was necessary. Phil Abingdon
came forward quite naturally--and quite naturally Paul Harley
discovered her little gloved hand to lie clasped between both his
laden with perfect understanding that, even yet, speech seemed
scarcely worth while.

Thinking over that moment, in later days, Paul Harley remembered
could not divine.

perhaps long enough to bridge the ages.

brave of you!"


valiantly to control her voice, "until this dreadful doubt is
to come."

that of Doctor McMurdoch, and in the gloomy eyes he read
admiration of this girl who could thus conquer the inherent

silk hat upon the floor and clasping his massive chin with his

"I will endeavour to do as you wish, Miss Abingdon," said Harley,
glancing anxiously at the physician.

But Doctor McMurdoch returned only a dull stare. It was evident
He deprecated the strain which she was imposing upon her nervous
system, already overwrought to the danger point, but he was
this new acquaintance who seemed in some indefinable yet definite
tell, comforting her the while.

his words with a view to sparing Phil Abingdon's feelings as far
as possible.

She made no comment throughout, but her fingers alternately
tightened and relaxed their hold upon the arms of the chair in
which she was seated. Once, at some reference to words spoken by
her father, her sensitive lips began to quiver and Harley,
watching her, paused. She held the chair arms more tightly.
"Please go on, Mr. Harley," she said.

The words were spoken in a very low voice, but the speaker looked
up bravely, and Harley, reassured, proceeded uninterruptedly to
the end of the story. Then:

"At some future time, Miss Abingdon," he concluded, "I hope you
will allow me to call upon you. There is so much to be

Again Phil Abingdon looked up into his face. "I have forced
myself to come to see you to-day," she said, "because I realize
there is no service I can do poor dad so important as finding
"I understand," Harley interrupted, gently. "But --"

"No, no." Phil Abingdon shook her head rebelliously. "Please ask
me what you want to know. I came for that."

He met the glance of violet eyes, and understood something of
Doctor McMurdoch's helplessness. He found his thoughts again
wandering into strange, wild byways and was only recalled to the
realities by the dry, gloomy voice of the physician. "Go on, Mr.
Harley," said Doctor McMurdoch. "She has grand courage."


Paul Harley crossed the room and stood in front of the tall
Burmese cabinet. He experienced the utmost difficulty in adopting
a judicial attitude toward his beautiful visitor. Proximity
increased his mental confusion. Therefore he stood on the
opposite side of the office ere beginning to question her.

"In the first place, Miss Abingdon," he said, speaking very
deliberately, "do you attach any particular significance to the
term 'Fire-Tongue'?"

Phil Abingdon glanced rapidly at Doctor McMurdoch. "None at all,
Mr. Harley," she replied. "The doctor has already told me of --"

"You know why I ask?" She inclined her head.

"And Mr. Nicol Brinn? Have you met this gentleman?"

"Never. I know that Dad had met him and was very much interested
in him."

"In what way?"

"I have no idea. He told me that he thought Mr. Brinn one of the
most singular characters he had ever known. But beyond describing
his rooms in Piccadilly, which had impressed him as
extraordinary, he said very little about Mr. Brinn. He sounded
interesting and "--she hesitated and her eyes filled with
tears--"I asked Dad to invite him home." Again she paused. This
retrospection, by making the dead seem to live again, added to
the horror of her sudden bereavement, and Harley would most
gladly have spared her more. "Dad seemed strangely disinclined to
do so," she added.

At that the keen investigator came to life within Harley. "Your
father did not appear anxious to bring Mr. Brinn to his home?" he
asked, eagerly.

"Not at all anxious. This was all the more strange because Dad
invited Mr. Brinn to his club."

"He gave no reason for his refusal?"

"Oh, there was no refusal, Mr. Harley. He merely evaded the
matter. I never knew why."

"H'm," muttered Harley. "And now, Miss Abingdon, can you
enlighten me respecting the identity of the Oriental gentleman
with whom he had latterly become acquainted?"

Phil Abingdon glanced rapidly at Doctor McMurdoch and then
lowered her head. She did not answer at once. "I know to whom you
refer, Mr. Harley," she said, finally. "But it was I who had made
this gentleman's acquaintance. My father did not know him."

"Then I wonder why he mentioned him?" murmured Harley.

"That I cannot imagine. I have been wondering ever since Doctor
McMurdoch told me."

"You recognize the person to whom Sir Charles referred?"

"Yes. He could only have meant Ormuz Khan."

"Ormuz Khan--" echoed Harley. "Where have I heard that name?"

"He visits England periodically, I believe. In fact, he has a
house somewhere near London. I met him at Lady Vail's."

"Lady Vail's? His excellency moves, then, in diplomatic circles?
Odd that I cannot place him."

"I have a vague idea, Mr. Harley, that he is a financier. I seem
to have heard that he had something to do with the Imperial Bank
of Iran." She glanced naively at Harley. "Is there such a bank?"
she asked.

"There is," he replied. "Am I to understand that Ormuz Khan is a

"I believe he is a Persian," said Phil Abingdon, rather
confusedly. "To be quite frank, I know very little about him."

Paul Harley gazed steadily at the speaker for a moment. "Can you
think of any reason why Sir Charles should have worried about
this gentleman?" he asked.

The girl lowered her head again. "He paid me a lot of attention,"
she finally confessed.

"This meeting at Lady Vail's, then, was the first of many?"

"Oh, no--not of many! I saw him two or three times. But he began
to send me most extravagant presents. I suppose it was his
Oriental way of paying a compliment, but Dad objected."

"Of course he would. He knew his Orient and his Oriental. I
assume, Miss Abingdon, that you were in England during the years
that your father lived in the East?"

"Yes. I was at school. I have never been in the East."

Paul Harley hesitated. He found himself upon dangerously delicate
ground and was temporarily at a loss as to how to proceed.
Unexpected aid came from the taciturn Doctor McMurdoch.

"He never breathed a word of this to me, Phil," he said,
gloomily. "The impudence of the man! Small wonder Abingdon

Phil Abingdon tilted her chin forward rebelliously.

"Ormuz Khan was merely unfamiliar with English customs," she
retorted. "There was nothing otherwise in his behaviour to which
any one could have taken exception."

"What's that!" demanded the physician. "If a man of colour paid
his heathen attentions to my daughter--"

"But you have no daughter, Doctor."

"No. But if I had--"

"If you had," echoed Phil Abingdon, and was about to carry on
this wordy warfare which, Harley divined, was of old standing
between the two, when sudden realization of the purpose of the
visit came to her. She paused, and he saw her biting her lips
desperately. Almost at random he began to speak again.

"So far as you are aware, then, Miss Abingdon, Sir Charles never
met Ormuz Khan?"

"He never even saw him, Mr. Harley, that I know of."

"It is most extraordinary that he should have given me the
impression that this man--for I can only suppose that he referred
to Ormuz Khan--was in some way associated with his fears."

"I must remind you, Mr. Harley," Doctor McMurdoch interrupted,
"that poor Abingdon was a free talker. His pride, I take it,
which was strong, had kept him silent on this matter with me, but
he welcomed an opportunity of easing his mind to one discreet and
outside the family circle. His words to you may have had no
bearing upon the thing he wished to consult you about."

"H'm," mused Harley. "That's possible. But such was not my
He turned again to Phil Abingdon. "This Ormuz Khan, I understood
you to say, actually resides in or near London?"

"He is at present living at the Savoy, I believe. He also has a
house somewhere outside London."

There were a hundred other questions Paul Harley was anxious to
ask: some that were professional but more that were personal. He
found himself resenting the intrusion of this wealthy Oriental
into the life of the girl who sat there before him. And because
he could read a kindred resentment in the gloomy eye of Doctor
McMurdoch, he was drawn spiritually closer to that dour

By virtue of his training he was a keen psychologist, and he
perceived clearly enough that Phil Abingdon was one of those
women in whom a certain latent perversity is fanned to life by
opposition. Whether she was really attracted by Ormuz Khan or
whether she suffered his attentions merely because she knew them
to be distasteful to others, he could not yet decide.

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. B ut 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.


Deep in reflection and oblivious of the busy London life around
him, Paul Harley walked slowly along the Strand. Outwardly he was
still the keen-eyed investigator who could pry more deeply into a
mystery than any other in England; but to-day his mood was
introspective. He was in a brown study.

The one figure which had power to recall him to the actual world
suddenly intruded itself upon his field of vision. From dreams
which he recognized in the moment of awakening to have been of
Phil Abingdon, he was suddenly aroused to the fact that Phil
Abingdon herself was present. Perhaps, half subconsciously, he
had been looking for her.

Veiled and dressed in black, he saw her slim figure moving
through the throng. He conceived the idea that there was
something furtive in her movements. She seemed to be hurrying
along as if desirous of avoiding recognition. Every now and again
she glanced back, evidently in search of a cab, and a dormant
suspicion which had lain in Harley's mind now became anim ate.
Phil Abingdon was coming from the direction of the Savoy Hotel.
Was it possible that she had been to visit Ormuz Khan?

Harley crossed the Strand and paused just in front of the
hurrying, black-clad figure. "Miss Abingdon," he said, "a sort of
instinct told me that I should meet you to-day."

She stopped suddenly, and through the black veil which she wore
he saw her eyes grow larger--or such was the effect as she opened
them widely. Perhaps he misread their message. To him Phil
Abingdon's expression was that of detected guilt. More than ever
he was convinced of the truth of his suspicions. "Perhaps you
were looking for a cab?" he suggested.

Overcoming her surprise, or whatever emotion had claimed her at
the moment of this unexpected meeting, Phil Abingdon took
Harley's outstretched hand and held it for a moment before
replying. "I had almost despaired of finding one," she said, "and
I am late already."

"The porter at the Savoy would get you one."

"I have tried there and got tired of waiting," she answered quite

For a moment Harley's suspicions were almost dispelled, and,
observing an empty cab approaching, he signalled to the man to
pull up.

"Where do you want to go to?" he inquired, opening the door.

"I am due at Doctor McMurdoch's," she replied, stepping in.

Paul Harley hesitated, glancing from the speaker to the driver.

"I wonder if you have time to come with me," said Phil Abingdon.
"I know the doctor wants to see you."
"I will come with pleasure," replied Harley, a statement which
was no more than true.

Accordingly he gave the necessary directions to the taxi man and
seated himself beside the girl in the cab.

"I am awfully glad of an opportunity of a chat with you, Mr.
Harley," said Phil Abingdon. "The last few days have seemed like
one long nightmare to me." She sighed pathetically. "Surely
Doctor McMurdoch is right, and all the horrible doubts which
troubled us were idle ones, after all?"

She turned to Harley, looking almost eagerly into his face. "Poor
daddy hadn't an enemy in the world, I am sure," she said. "His
extraordinary words to you no doubt have some simple explanation.
Oh, it would be such a relief to know that his end was a natural
one. At least it would dull the misery of it all a little bit."

The appeal in her eyes was of a kind which Harley found much
difficulty in resisting. It would have been happiness to offer
consolation to this sorrowing girl. But, although he could not
honestly assure her that he had abandoned his theories, he
realized that the horror of her suspicions was having a dreadful
effect upon Phil Abingdon's mind.

"You may quite possibly be right," he said, gently. "In any
event, I hope you will think as little as possible about the
morbid side of this unhappy business."

"I try to," she assured him, earnestly, "but you can imagine how
hard the task is. I know that you must have some good reason for
your idea; something, I mean, other than the mere words which
have puzzled us all so much. Won't you tell me?"

Now, Paul Harley had determined, since the girl was unacquainted
with Nicol Brinn, to conceal from her all that he had learned
from that extraordinary man. In this determination he had been
actuated, too, by the promptings of the note of danger which,
once seemingly attuned to the movements of Sir Charles Abingdon,
had, after the surgeon's death, apparently become centred upon
himself and upon Nicol Brinn. He dreaded the thought that the
cloud might stretch out over the life of this girl who sat beside
him and whom he felt so urgently called upon to protect from such
a menace.

The cloud? What was this cloud, whence did it emanate, and by
whom had it been called into being? He looked into the violet
eyes, and as a while before he had moved alone through the
wilderness of London now he seemed to be alone with Phil Abingdon
on the border of a spirit world which had no existence for the
multitudes around. Psychically, he was very close to her at that
moment; and when he replied he replied evasively: "I have
absolutely no scrap of evidence, Miss Abingdon, pointing to foul
play. The circumstances were peculiar, of course, but I have
every confidence in Doctor McMurdoch's efficiency. Since he is
satisfied, it would be mere impertinence on my part to question
his verdict."

Phil Abingdon repeated the weary sigh and turned her head aside,
glancing down to where with one small shoe she was restlessly
tapping the floor of the cab. They were both silent for some

"Don't you trust me?" she asked, suddenly. "Or don't you think I
am clever enough to share your confidence?"

As she spoke she looked at him challengingly, and he felt all the
force of personality which underlay her outward lightness of

"I both trust you and respect your intelligence," he answered,
quietly. "If I withhold anything from you, I am prompted by a
very different motive from the one you suggest."

"Then you are keeping something from me," she said, softly. "I
knew you were."

"Miss Abingdon," replied Harley, "when the worst trials of this
affair are over, I want to have a long talk with you. Until then,
won't you believe that I am acting for the best?"

But Phil Abingdon's glance was unrelenting.

"In your opinion it may be so, but you won't do me the honour of
consulting mine."

Harley had half anticipated this attitude, but had hoped that she
would not adopt it. She possessed in a high degree the feminine
art of provoking a quarrel. But he found much cons olation in the
fact that she had thus shifted the discussion from the abstract
to the personal. He smiled slightly, and Phil Abingdon's
expression relaxed in response and she lowered her eyes quickly.
"Why do you persistently treat me like a child?" she said.

"I don't know," replied Harley, delighted but bewildered by her
sudden change of mood. "Perhaps because I want to."

She did not answer him, but stared abstractedly out of the cab
window; and Harley did not break this silence, much as he would
have liked to do so. He was mentally reviewing his labours of the
preceding day when, in the character of a Colonial visitor with
much time on his hands, he had haunted the Savoy for hours in the
hope of obtaining a glimpse of Ormuz Khan. His vigil had been
fruitless, and on returning by a roundabout route to his office
he had bitterly charged himself with wasting valuable time upon a
side issue. Yet when, later, he had sat in his study endeavouring
to arrange his ideas in order, he had discovered many points in
his own defence.

If his ineffective surveillance of Ormuz Khan had been dictated
by interest in Phil Abingdon rather than by strictly professional
motives, it was, nevertheless, an ordinary part of the conduct of
such a case. But while he had personally undertaken the matter of
his excellency he had left the work of studying the activities of
Nicol Brinn to an assistant. He could not succeed in convincing
himself that, on the evidence available, the movements of the
Oriental gentleman were more important than those of the

"Here we are," said Phil Abingdon.

She alighted, and Harley dismissed the cabman and followed the
girl into Doctor McMurdoch's house. Here he made the acquaintance
of Mrs. McMurdoch, who, as experience had taught him to
anticipate, was as plump and merry and vivacious as her husband
was lean, gloomy, and taciturn. But she was a perfect well of
sympathy, as her treatment of the bereaved girl showed. She took
her in her arms and hugged her in a way that was good to see.

"We were waiting for you, dear," she said when the formality of
presenting Harley was over. "Are you quite sure that you want to

Phil Abingdon nodded pathetically. She had raised her veil, and
Harley could see that her eyes were full of tears. "I should like
to see the flowers," she answered.

She was staying at the McMurdochs' house, and as the object at
present in view was that of a visit to her old home, from which
the funeral of Sir Charles Abingdon was to take place on the
morrow, Harley became suddenly conscious of the fact that his
presence was inopportune.

"I believe you want to see me, Doctor McMurdoch," he said,
turning to the dour physician. "Shall I await your return or do
you expect to be detained?"

But Phil Abingdon had her own views on the matter. She stepped up
beside him and linked her arm in his.

"Please come with me, Mr. Harley," she pleaded. "I want you to."

As a result he found himself a few minutes later entering the
hall of the late Sir Charles's house. The gloved hand resting on
his arm trembled, but when he looked down solicitously into Phil
Abingdon's face she smiled bravely, and momentarily her clasp
tightened as if to reassure him.

It seemed quite natural that she should derive comfort from the
presence of this comparative stranger; and neither of the two, as
they stood there looking at the tributes to the memory of the
late Sir Charles--which overflowed from a neighbouring room into
the lobby and were even piled upon the library table--were
conscious of any strangeness in the situation.

The first thing that had struck Harley on entering the house had
been an overpowering perfume of hyacinths. Now he saw whence it
arose; for, conspicuous amid the wreaths and crosses, was an
enormous device formed of hyacinths. Its proportions dwarfed
those of all the others.

Mrs. Howett, the housekeeper, a sad-eyed little figure, appeared
now from behind the bank of flowers. Her grief could not rob her
of that Old World manner which was hers, and she saluted the
visitors with a bow which promised to develop into a curtsey.
Noting the direction of Phil Abingdon's glance, which was set
upon a card attached to the wreath of hyacinths: "It was the
first to arrive, Miss Phil," she said. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"It's wonderful," said the girl, moving forward and drawing
Harley along with her. She glanced from the card up to his face,
which was set in a rather grim expression.

"Ormuz Khan has been so good," she said. "He sent his secretary
to see if he could be of any assistance yesterday, but I
certainly had not expected this."

Her eyes filled with tears again, and, because he thought they
were tears of gratitude, Harley clenched his hand tightly so that
the muscles of his forearm became taut to Phil Abingdon's touch.
She looked up at him, smiling pathetically: "Don't you think it
was awfully kind of him?" she asked.

"Very," replied Harley.

A dry and sepulchral cough of approval came from Doctor
McMurdoch; and Harley divined with joy that when the ordeal of
the next day was over Phil Abingdon would have to face
cross-examination by the conscientious Scotsman respecting this
stranger whose attentions, if Orientally extravagant, were
instinct with such generous sympathy.

For some reason the heavy perfume of the hyacinths affected him
unpleasantly. All his old doubts and suspicions found a new life,
so that his share in the conversation which presently arose
became confined to a few laconic answers to direct questions.

He was angry, and his anger was more than half directed against
himself, because he knew that he had no shadow of right to
question this girl about her friendships or even to advise her.
He determined, however, even at the cost of incurring a rebuke,
to urge Doctor McMurdoch to employ all the influence he possessed
to terminate an acquaintanceship which could not be otherwise
than undesirable, if it was not actually dangerous.
When, presently, the party returned to the neighbouring house of
the physician, however, Harley's plans in this respect were
destroyed by the action of Doctor McMurdoch, in whose composition
tact was not a predominant factor. Almost before they were seated
in the doctor's drawing room he voiced his disapproval. "Phil,"
he said, ignoring a silent appeal from his wife, "this is,
mayhap, no time to speak of the matter, but I'm not glad to see
the hyacinths."

Phil Abingdon's chin quivered rebelliously, and, to Harley's
dismay, it was upon him that she fixed her gaze in replying.
"Perhaps you also disapprove of his excellency's kindness?" she
said, indignantly.

Harley found himself temporarily at a loss for words. She was
perfectly well aware that he disapproved, and now was taking a
cruel pleasure in reminding him of the fact that he was not
entitled to do so. Had he been capable of that calm analysis to
which ordinarily he submitted all psychological problems, he must
have found matter for rejoicing in this desire of the girl's to
hurt him. "I am afraid, Miss Abingdon," he replied, quietly,
"that the matter is not one in which I am entitled to express my

She continued to look at him challengingly, but:

"Quite right, Mr. Harley," said Doctor McMurdoch, "but if you
were, your opinion would be the same as mine."

Mrs. McMurdoch's glance became positively beseeching, but the
physician ignored it. "As your father's oldest friend," he
continued, "I feel called upon to remark that it isn't usual for
strangers to thrust their attentions upon a bereaved family."

"Oh," said Phil Abingdon with animation, "do I understand that
this is also your opinion, Mr. Harley?"

"As a man of the world," declared Doctor McMurdoch, gloomily, "it
cannot fail to be."

Tardily enough he now succumbed to the silent entreaties of his
wife. "I will speak of this later," he concluded. "Mayhap I
should not have spoken now."

Tears began to trickle down Phil Abingdon's cheeks.

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried little Mrs. McMurdoch, running to
her side.

But the girl sprang up, escaping from the encircling arm of the
motherly old lady. She shook her head disdainfully, as if to
banish tears and weakness, and glanced rapidly around from face
to face. "I think you are all perfectly cruel and horrible," she
said in a choking voice, turned, and ran out.
A distant door banged.

"H'm," muttered Doctor McMurdoch, "I've put my foot in it."

His wife looked at him in speechless indignation and then
followed Phil Abingdon from the room.


On returning to his office Paul Harley found awaiting him the
report of the man to whom he had entrusted the study of the
movements of Nicol Brinn. His mood was a disturbed one, and he
had observed none of his customary precautions in coming from
Doctor McMurdoch's house. He wondered if the surveillance which
he had once detected had ceased. Perhaps the chambers of Nicol
Brinn were the true danger zone upon which these subtle but
powerful forces now were focussed. On the other hand, he was
quite well aware that his movements might have been watched
almost uninterruptedly since the hour that Sir Charles Abingdon
had visited his office.

During the previous day, in his attempt to learn the identity of
Ormuz Khan, he had covered his tracks with his customary care. He
had sufficient faith in his knowledge of disguise, which was
extensive, to believe that those mysterious persons who were
interested in his movements remained unaware of the fact that the
simple-minded visitor from Vancouver who had spent several hours
in and about the Savoy, and Paul Harley of Chancery Lane, were
one and the same.

His brain was far too alertly engaged with troubled thoughts of
Phil Abingdon to be susceptible to the influence of those
delicate etheric waves which he had come to recognize as the note
of danger. Practically there had been no development whatever in
the investigation, and he was almost tempted to believe that the
whole thing was a mirage, when the sight of the typewritten
report translated him mentally to the luxurious chambers in

Again, almost clairvoyantly, he saw the stoical American seated
before the empty fireplace, his foot restlessly tapping the
fender. Again he heard the curious, high tones: "I'll tell you...
You have opened the gates of hell...."

The whole scene, with its tantalizing undercurrent of mystery,
was reenacted before his inner vision. He seemed to hear Nicol
Brinn, startled from his reverie, exclaim: "I think it wa s an
owl.... We sometimes get them over from the Green Park...."

Why should so simple an incident have produced so singular an
effect? For the face of the speaker had been ashen.
Then the pendulum swung inevitably back: "You are all perfectly
cruel and horrible...."

Paul Harley clenched his hands, frowning at the Burmese cabinet
as though he hated it.

How persistently   the voice of Phil Abingdon rang in his ears! He
could not forget   her lightest words. How hopelessly her
bewitching image   intruded itself between his reasoning mind and
the problem upon   which he sought to concentrate.

Miss Smith, the typist, had gone, for it was after six o'clock,
and Innes alone was on duty. He came in as Harley, placing his
hat and cane upon the big writing table, sat down to study the

"Inspector Wessex rang up, Mr. Harley, about an hour ago. He said
he would be at the Yard until six."

"Has he obtained any information?" asked Paul Harley, wearily,
glancing at his little table clock.

"He said he had had insufficient time to do much in the matter,
but that there were one or two outstanding facts which might
interest you."

"Did he seem to be surprised?"

"He did," confessed Innes. "He said that Ormuz Khan was a
well-known figure in financial circles, and asked me in what way
you were interested in him."

"Ah!" murmured Harley. He took up the telephone. "City 400," he
said.... "Is that the Commissioner's Office, New Scotland Yard?
... Paul Harley speaking. Would you please inquire if Detective
Inspector Wessex has gone?"

While awaiting a reply he looked up at Innes. "Is there anything
else?" he asked.

"Only the letters, Mr. Harley."

"No callers?"


"Leave the letters, then; I will see to them. You need not w ait."
A moment later, as his secretary bade him good-night and went out
of the office:

"Hello," said Harley, speaking into the mouthpiece... "The
inspector has gone? Perhaps you would ask him to ring me up in
the morning." He replaced the receiver on the hook.
Resting his chin in his hands, he began to read from the
typewritten pages before him. His assistant's report was
conceived as follows:

'Re Mr. Nicol Brinn of Raleigh House, Piccadilly, W. I.

'Mr. Nicol Brinn is an American citizen, born at Cincinnati,
Ohio, February 15, 1884. He is the son of John Nicolas Brinn of
the same city, founder of the firm of J. Nicolas Brinn,
Incorporated, later reconstituted under the style of Brinn's
Universal Electric Supply Corporation.

'Nicol Brinn is a graduate of Harvard. He has travelled
extensively in nearly all parts of the world and has access to
the best society of Europe and America. He has a reputation for
eccentricity, has won numerous sporting events as a gentleman
rider; was the first airman to fly over the Rockies; took part in
the Uruguay rebellion of 1904, and held the rank of lieutenant
colonel of field artillery with the American forces during the
Great War.

'He has published a work on big game and has contributed numerous
travel articles to American periodicals. On the death of Mr.
Brinn, senior, in 1914, he inherited an enormous fortune and a
preponderating influence in the B.U.E.S.C. He has never taken any
active part in conduct of the concern, but has lived a restless
and wandering life in various parts of the world.

'Mr. Nicol Brinn is a confirmed bachelor. I have been unable to
find that he has ever taken the slightest interest in any woman
other than his mother throughout his career. Mrs. J. Nicolas
Brinn is still living in Cincinnati, and there is said to be a
strong bond of affection between mother and son. His movements on
yesterday, 4th June, 1921, were as follows:

'He came out of his chambers at eight o'clock and rode for an
hour in the park, when he returned and remained indoors until
midday. He then drove to the Carlton, where he lunched with the
Foreign Secretary, with whom he remained engaged in earnest
conversation until ten minutes to three. The Rt. Hon. gentleman
proceeded to the House of Commons and Mr. Brinn to an auction at
Christie's. He bought two oil paintings. He then returned to his
chambers and did not reappear again until seven o'clock. He dined
alone at a small and unfashionable restaurant in Soho, went on to
his box at Covent Garden, where he remained for an hour, also
alone, and then went home. He had no callers throughout the day.'

Deliberately Paul Harley had read the report, only removing his
hand from his chin to turn over the pages. Now from the cabinet
at his elbow he took out his tin of tobacco and, filling and
lighting a pipe, lay back, eyes half closed, considering what he
had learned respecting Nicol Brinn.
That he was concerned in the death of Sir Charles Abingdon he did
not believe for a moment; but that this elusive case, which upon
investigation only seemed the more obscure, was nevertheless a
case of deliberate murder he was as firmly convinced as ever. Of
the identity of the murderer, of his motive, he had not the
haziest idea, but that the cloud which he had pictured as
overhanging the life of the late Sir Charles was a reality and
not a myth of the imagination he became more completely convinced
with each new failure to pick up a clue.

He found himself helplessly tied. In which direction should he
move and to what end? Inclination prompted him in one direction,
common sense held him back. As was his custom, he took a pencil
and wrote upon a little block:

Find means to force Brinn to speak.

He lay back in his chair again, deep in thought, and presently
added the note:

Obtain interview with Ormuz Khan.

Just as he replaced the pencil on the table, his telephone bell
rang. The caller proved to be his friend, Inspector Wessex.

"Hello, Mr. Harley," said the inspector. "I had occasion to
return to the Yard, and they told me you had rung up. I don't
know why you are interested in this Ormuz Khan, unless you want
to raise a loan."

Paul Harley laughed. "I gather that he is a man of extensive
means," he replied, "but hitherto he has remained outside my
radius of observation."

"And outside mine," declared the inspector. "He hasn't the most
distant connection with anything crooked. It gave me a lot of
trouble to find out what little I have found out. Briefly, all I
have to tell you is this: Ormuz Khan--who is apparently entitled
to be addressed as 'his excellency'--is a director of the
Imperial Bank of Iran, and is associated, too, with one of the
Ottoman banks. I presume his nationality is Persian, but I can't
be sure of it. He periodically turns up in the various big
capitals when international loans and that sort of thing are
being negotiated. I understand that he has a flat somewhere in
Paris, and the Service de Surete tells me that his name is good
for several million francs over there. He appears to have a
certain fondness for London during the spring and early summer
months, and I am told he has a fine place in Surrey. He is at
present living at Savoy Court. He appears to be something of a
dandy and to be very partial to the fair sex, but nevertheless
there is nothing wrong with his reputation, considering, I mean,
that the man is a sort of Eastern multimillionaire."

"Ah!" said Harley, who had been listening eagerly. "Is that the
extent of your information, Wessex?"

"That's it," replied Wessex, with a laugh. "I hope you'll find it
useful, but I doubt it. He hasn't been picking pockets or
anything, has he?"

"No," said Harley, shortly. "I don't apprehend that his
excellency will ever appear in your province, Wessex. My interest
in him is of a purely personal nature. Thanks for all the trouble
you have taken."

Paul Harley began to pace the office. From a professional point
of view the information was uninteresting enough, but from
another point of view it had awakened again that impotent anger
which he had too often experienced in these recent, strangely
restless days.

At all costs he must see Ormuz Khan, although how he was to
obtain access to this man who apparently never left his private
apartments (if the day of his vigil at the Savoy had been a
typical one) he failed to imagine.

Nevertheless, pausing at the table, he again took up his pencil,
and to the note "Obtain interview with Ormuz Khan" he added the
one word, underlined:



The city clocks were chiming the hour of ten on the following
morning when a page from the Savoy approached the shop of Mr.
Jarvis, bootmaker, which is situated at no great distance fr om
the hotel. The impudent face of the small boy wore an expression
of serio-comic fright as he pushed open the door and entered the

Jarvis, the bootmaker, belonged to a rapidly disappearing class
of British tradesmen. He buckled to no one, but took an artistic
pride in his own handiwork, criticism from a layman merely
provoking a scornful anger which had lost Jarvis many good

He was engaged, at the moment of the page's entrance, in a little
fitting room at the back of his cramped premises, but through the
doorway the boy could see the red, bespectacled face with its
fringe of bristling white beard, in which he detected all the
tokens of brewing storm. He whistled softly in self-sympathy.

"Yes, sir," Jarvis was saying to an invisible patron, "it's a
welcome sight to see a real Englishman walk into my shop
nowadays. London isn't London, sir, since the war, and the Strand
will never be the Strand again." He turned to his assistant, who
stood beside him, bootjack in hand. "If he sends them back
again," he directed, "tell him to go to one of the French firms
in Regent Street who cater to dainty ladies." He positively
snorted with indignation, while the page, listening, whistled
again and looked down at the parcel which he carried.

"An unwelcome customer, Jarvis?" inquired the voice of the man in
the fitting room.

"Quite unwelcome," said Jarvis. "I don't want him. I have more
work than I know how to turn out. I wish he would go elsewhere. I

He paused. He had seen the page boy. The latter, having undone
his parcel, was holding out a pair of elegant, fawn-coloured

"Great Moses!" breathed Jarvis. "He's had the cheek to send them
back again!"

"His excellency--" began the page, when Jarvis snatched the shoes
from his hand and hurled them to the other end of the shop. His
white beard positively bristled.

"Tell his excellency," he shouted, "to go to the devil, with my

So positively ferocious was his aspect that the boy, wi th
upraised arm, backed hastily out into the street. Safety won:
"Blimey!" exclaimed the youth. "He's the warm goods, he is!"

He paused for several moments, staring in a kind of stupefied
admiration at the closed door of Mr. Jarvis's establishment. H e
whistled again, softly, and then began to run--for the formidable
Mr. Jarvis suddenly opened the door. "Hi, boy!" he called to the
page. The page hesitated, glancing back doubtfully. "Tell his
excellency that I will send round in about half an hour t o
remeasure his foot."

"D'you mean it?" inquired the boy, impudently--"or is there a
catch in it?"

"I'll tan your hide, my lad!" cried the bootmaker--"and I mean
that! Take my message and keep your mouth shut."

The boy departed, grinning, and little more than half an hour
later a respectable-looking man presented himself at Savoy Court,
inquiring of the attendant near the elevator for the apartments
of "his excellency," followed by an unintelligible word which
presumably represented "Ormuz Khan." The visitor wore a
well-brushed but threadbare tweed suit, although his soft collar
was by no means clean. He had a short, reddish-brown beard, and
very thick, curling hair of the same hue protruded from beneath a
bowler hat which had seen long service.

Like Mr. Jarvis, he was bespectacled, and his teeth were much
discoloured and apparently broken in front, as is usual with
cobblers. His hands, too, were toil-stained and his nails very
black. He carried a cardboard box. He seemed to be extremely
nervous, and this nervousness palpably increased when the
impudent page, who was standing in the lobby, giggled on hearing
his inquiry.

"He's second floor," said the youth. "Are you from Hot-Stuff

"That's right, lad," replied the visitor, speaking with a marked
Manchester accent; "from Mr. Jarvis."

"And are you really going up?" inquired the boy with mock

"I'm going up right enough. That's what I'm here for."

"Shut up, Chivers," snapped the hall porter. "Ring the bell." He
glanced at the cobbler. "Second floor," he said, tersely, and
resumed his study of a newspaper which he had been reading.

The representative of Mr. Jarvis was carried up to the second
floor and the lift man, having indicated at which doo r he should
knock, descended again. The cobbler's nervousness thereupon
became more marked than ever, so that a waiter, seeing him
looking helplessly from door to door, took pity on him and
inquired for whom he was searching.

"His excellency," was the reply; "but I'm hanged if I can
remember the number or how to pronounce his name."

The waiter glanced at him oddly. "Ormuz Khan," he said, and rang
the bell beside a door. As he hurried away, "Good luck!" he
called back.

There was a short interval, and then the door was opened by a man
who looked like a Hindu. He wore correct morning dress and
through gold-rimmed pince-nez he stared inquiringly at the

"Is his excellency at home?" asked the latter. "I'm from Mr.
Jarvis, the bootmaker."

"Oh!" said the other, smiling slightly. "Come in. What is your

"Parker, sir. From Mr. Jarvis."

As the door closed, Parker found himself in a small lobby. Beside
an umbrella rack a high-backed chair was placed. "Sit down," he
was directed. "I will tell his excellency that you are here."

A door was opened and closed again, and Parker found himself
alone. He twirled his bowler hat, which he held in his hand, and
stared about the place vacantly. Once he began to whistle, but
checked himself and coughed nervously. Finally the Hindu
gentleman reappeared, beckoning to him to enter.

Parker stood up very quickly and advanced, hat in hand.

Then he remembered the box which he had left on the floor, and,
stooping to recover it, he dropped his hat. But at last, leaving
his hat upon the chair and carrying the box under his arm, he
entered a room which had been converted into a very businesslike

There was a typewriter upon a table near the window at which
someone had evidently been at work quite recently, and upon a
larger table in the centre of the room were dispatch boxes, neat
parcels of documents, ledgers, works of reference, and all the
evidence of keen commercial activity. Crossing the room, the
Hindu rapped upon an inner door, opened it, and standing aside,
"The man from the bootmaker," he said in a low voice.

Parker advanced, peering about him as one unfamiliar with his
surroundings. As he crossed the threshold the door was closed
behind him, and he found himself in a superheated atmosphere
heavy with the perfume of hyacinths.

The place was furnished as a sitting room, but some of its
appointments were obviously importations. Its keynote was
orientalism, not of that sensuous yet grossly masculine char acter
which surrounds the wealthy Eastern esthete but quite markedly
feminine. There were an extraordinary number of cushions, and
many bowls and vases containing hyacinths. What other strange
appointments were present Parker was far too nervous to observe.

He stood dumbly before a man who lolled back in a deep, cushioned
chair and whose almond-shaped eyes, black as night, were set
immovably upon him. This man was apparently young. He wore a
rich, brocaded robe, trimmed with marten fur, and out of it his
long ivory throat rose statuesquely. His complexion was likewise
of this uniform ivory colour, and from his low smooth brow his
hair was brushed back in a series of glossy black waves.

His lips were full and very red. As a woman he might have been
considered handsome--even beautiful; in a man this beauty was
unnatural and repellent. He wore Oriental slippers, fur -lined,
and his feet rested on a small ottoman. One long, slender hand
lay upon a cushion placed on the chair arm, and a pretty girl was
busily engaged in manicuring his excellency's nails. Although the
day held every promise of being uncomfortably hot, already a huge
fire was burning in the grate.
As Parker stood before him, the languid, handsome Oriental did
not stir a muscle, merely keeping the gaze of his strange black
eyes fixed upon the nervous cobbler. The manicurist, after one
quick upward glance, continued her work. But in this moment of
distraction she had hurt the cuticle of one of those delicate,
slender fingers.

Ormuz Khan withdrew his hand sharply from the cushion, glanced
aside at the girl, and then, extending his hand again, pushed her
away from him. Because of her half-kneeling posture, she almost
fell, but managed to recover herself by clutching at the edge of
a little table upon which the implements of her trade were
spread. The table rocked and a bowl of water fell crashing on the
carpet. His excellency spoke. His voice was very musical.

"Clumsy fool," he said. "You have hurt me. Go."

The girl became very white and began to gather up the articles
upon the table. "I am sorry," she said, "but--"

"I do not wish you to speak," continued the musical voice; "only
to go."

Hurriedly collecting the remainder of the implements and placing
them in an attache case, the manicurist hurried from the room.
Her eyes were overbright and her lips pathetically tremulous.
Ormuz Khan never glanced in her direction again, but resumed his
disconcerting survey of Parker. "Yes?" he said.

Parker bumblingly began to remove the lid of the cardboard box
which he had brought with him.

"I do not wish you to alter the shoes you have made," said his
excellency. "I instructed you to remeasure my foot in order that
you might make a pair to fit."

"Yes, sir," said Parker. "Quite so, your excellency." And he
dropped the box and the shoes upon the floor. "Just a moment,

From an inner pocket he drew out a large sheet of white paper, a
pencil, and a tape measure. "Will you place your foot upon this
sheet of paper, sir?"

Ormuz Khan raised his right foot listlessly.

"Slipper off, please, sir."

"I am waiting," replied the other, never removing his gaze from
Parker's face.

"Oh, I beg your pardon sir, your excellency," muttered the
Dropping upon one knee, he removed the furred slipper from a
slender, arched foot, bare, of the delicate colour of ivory, and
as small as a woman's.

"Now, sir."

The ivory foot was placed upon the sheet of paper, and very
clumsily Parker drew its outline. He then took certain
measurements and made a number of notes with a stub of thick
pencil. Whenever his none too clean hands touched Ormuz Khan's
delicate skin the Oriental perceptibly shuddered.

"Of course, sir," said Parker at last, "I should really have
taken your measurement with the sock on."

"I wear only the finest silk."

"Very well, sir. As you wish."

Parker replaced paper, pencil, and measure, and, packing up the
rejected shoes, made for the door.

"Oh, bootmaker!" came the musical voice.

Parker turned. "Yes, sir?"

"They will be ready by Monday?"

"If possible, your excellency."

"Otherwise I shall not accept them."

Ormuz Khan drew a hyacinth from a vase close beside him and
languidly waved it in dismissal.

In the outer room the courteous secretary awaited Parker, and
there was apparently no one else in the place, for the Hindu
conducted him to the lobby and opened the door.

Parker said "Good morning, sir," and would have departed without
his hat had not the secretary smilingly handed it to him.

When, presently, the cobbler emerged from the elevator, below, he
paused before leaving the hotel to mop his perspiring brow with a
large, soiled handkerchief. The perfume of hyacinths seemed to
have pursued him, bringing with it a memory of the handsome,
effeminate ivory face of the man above. He was recalled to his
senses by the voice of the impudent page.

"Been kicked out, gov'nor?" the youth inquired. "You're the third
this morning."

"Is that so?" answered Parker. "Who were the other two, lad?"
"The girl wot comes to do his nails. A stunnin' bird, too. She
came down cryin' a few minutes ago. Then--"

"Shut up, Chivers!" cried the hall porter. "You're asking for the
sack, and I'm the man to get it for you."

Chivers did not appear to be vastly perturbed by this prospect,
and he grinned agreeably at Parker as the latter made his way out
into the courtyard.

Any one sufficiently interested to have done so might have found
matter for surprise had he followed that conscientious bootmaker
as he left the hotel. He did not proceed to the shop of Mr.
Jarvis, but, crossing the Strand, mounted a citybound motor bus
and proceeded eastward upon it as far as the Law Courts. Here he
dismounted and plunged into that maze of tortuous lanes which
dissects the triangle formed by Chancery Lane and Holborn.

His step was leisurely, and once he stopped to light his pipe,
peering with interest into the shop window of a law stationer.
Finally he came to another little shop which had once formed part
of a private house. It was of the lock-up variety, and upon the
gauze blind which concealed the interior appeared the words: "The
Chancery Agency."

Whether the Chancery Agency was a press agency, a literary or a
dramatic agency, was not specified, but Mr. Parker was evidently
well acquainted with the establishment, for he unlocked the door
with a key which he carried and, entering a tiny shop, closed and
locked the door behind him again.

The place was not more than ten yards square and the ceiling was
very low. It was barely furnished as an office, but evidently Mr.
Parker's business was not of a nature to detain him here. There
was a second door to be unlocked; and beyond it appeared a flight
of narrow stairs--at some time the servant's stair of the
partially demolished house which had occupied that site in former
days. Relocking this door in turn, Mr. Parker mounted the stair
and presently found himself in a spacious and well -furnished

This bedroom contained an extraordinary number of wardrobes, and
a big dressing table with wing mirrors lent a theatrical touch to
the apartment. This was still further enhanced by the presence of
all sorts of wigs, boxes of false hair, and other items of
make-up. At the table Mr. Parker seated himself, and when, half
an hour later, the bedroom door was opened, it was not Mr. Parker
who crossed the book-lined study within and walked through to the
private office where Innes was seated writing. It was Mr. Paul

For more than an hour Harley sat alone, smoking, neglectful of
the routine duties which should have claimed his attention. His
face was set and grim, and his expression one of total
abstraction. In spirit he stood again in that superheated room at
the Savoy. Sometimes, as he mused, he would smoke with
unconscious vigour, surrounding himself with veritable fog banks.
An imaginary breath of hyacinths would have reached him, to
conjure up vividly the hateful, perfumed environment of Ormuz

He was savagely aware of a great mental disorderliness. He
recognized that his brain remained a mere whirlpool from which
Phyllis Abingdon, the deceased Sir Charles, Nicol Brinn, and
another, alternately arose to claim supremacy. He clenched his
teeth upon the mouthpiece of his pipe.

But after some time, although rebelliously, his thoughts began to
marshal themselves in a certain definite formation. And
outstanding, alone, removed from the ordinary, almost from the
real, was the bizarre personality of Ormuz Khan.

The data concerning the Oriental visitor, as supplied by
Inspector Wessex, had led him to expect quite a different type of
character. Inured as Paul Harley was to surprise, his first
sentiment as he had set eyes upon the man had been one of sheer

"Something of a dandy," inadequately described the repellent
sensuousness of this veritable potentate, who could contrive to
invest a sitting room in a modern hotel with the atmosphere of a
secret Eastern household. To consider Ormuz Khan in connection
with matters of international finance was wildly incongruous,
while the manicurist incident indicated an inherent cruelty only
possible in one of Oriental race.

In a mood of complete mental detachment Paul Harley found himself
looking again into those black, inscrutable eyes and trying to
analyze the elusive quality of their regard. They were unlike any
eyes that he had met with. It were folly to count their possessor
a negligible quantity. Nevertheless, it was difficult, because of
the fellow's scented effeminacy, to believe that women could find
him attractive. But Harley, wise in worldly lore, perceived that
the mystery surrounding Ormuz Khan must make a strong appeal to a
certain type of female mind. He was forced to admit that some
women, indeed many, would be as clay in the hands of the man who
possessed those long-lashed, magnetic eyes.

He thought of the pretty manicurist. Mortification he had read in
her white face, and pain; but no anger. Yes, Ormuz Khan was

In what respect was he dangerous?
"Phil Abingdon!" Harley whispered, and, in the act of breathing
the name, laughed at his own folly.

In the name of reason, he mused, what could she find to interest
her in a man of Ormuz Khan's type? He was prepared to learn that
there was a mystic side to her personality--a phase in her
character which would be responsive to the outre and romantic.
But he was loath to admit that she could have any place in her
affections for the scented devotee of hyacinths.

Thus, as always, his musings brought him back to the same point.
He suppressed a groan and, standing up, began to pace the room.
To and fro he walked, before the gleaming cabinet, and presently
his expression underwent a subtle change. His pipe had long since
gone out, but he had failed to observe the fact. His eyes had
grown unusually bright--and suddenly he stepped to the table and
stooping made a note upon the little writing block.

He rang the bell communicating with the outer office. Innes came
in. "Innes," he said, rapidly, "is there anything of really
first-rate importance with which I should deal personally?"

"Well," replied the secretary, glancing at some papers which he
carried, "there is nothing that could not wait until to -morrow at
a pinch."

"The pinch has come," said Harley. "I am going to interview the
two most important witnesses in the Abingdon case."

"To whom do you refer, Mr. Harley?"

Innes stared rather blankly, as he made the inquiry, whereupon:

"I have no time to explain," continued Harley. "But I have
suddenly realized the importance of a seemingly trivial incident
which I witnessed. It is these trivial incidents, Innes, which so
often contain the hidden clue."

"What! you really think you have a clue at last?"

"I do." The speaker's face grew grimly serious. "Innes, if I am
right, I shall probably proceed to one of two places: the
apartments of Ormuz Khan or the chambers of Nicol Brinn. Listen.
Remain here until I phone--whatever the hour."

"Shall I advise Wessex to stand by?"

Harley nodded. "Yes--do so. You understand, Innes, I am engaged
and not to be disturbed on any account?"

"I understand. You are going out by the private exit?"

As Innes retired, quietly closing the door, Harley took up the
telephone and called Sir Charles Abingdon's number. He was
answered by a voice which he recognized.

"This is Paul Harley speaking," he said. "Is that Benson?"

"Yes, sir," answered the butler. "Good morning, sir."

"Good morning, Benson. I have one or two questions to ask you,
and there is something I want you to do for me. Miss Abingdon is
out, I presume?"

"Yes, sir," replied Benson, sadly. "At the funeral, sir."

"Is Mrs. Howett in?"

"She is, sir."

"I shall be around in about a quarter of an hour, Benson. In the
meantime, will you be good enough to lay the dining table exactly
as it was laid on the night of Sir Charles's death?"

Benson could be heard nervously clearing his throat, then:
"Perhaps, sir," he said, diffidently, "I didn't quite understand
you. Lay the table, sir, for dinner?"

"For dinner--exactly. I want everything to be there that was
present on the night of the tragedy; everything. Naturally you
will have to place different flowers in the vases, but I want to
see the same vases. From the soup tureen to the serviette rings,
Benson, I wish you to duplicate the dinner table as I remember
it, paying particular attention to the exact position of each
article. Mrs. Howett will doubtless be able to assist you in

"Very good, sir," said Benson--but his voice betokened
bewilderment. "I will see Mrs. Howett at once, sir."

"Right. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, sir."

Replacing the receiver, Harley took a bunch of keys from his
pocket and, crossing the office, locked the door. He then retired
to his private apartments and also locked the communicating door.
A few moments later he came out of "The Chancery Agency" and
proceeded in the direction of the Strand. Under cover of the
wire-gauze curtain which veiled the window he had carefully
inspected the scene before emerging. But although his eyes were
keen and his sixth sense whispered "Danger--danger!" he had failed
to detect anything amiss.

This constant conflict between intuition and tangible evidence
was beginning to tell upon him. Either his sixth sense had begun
to play tricks or he was the object of the most perfectly
organized and efficient system of surveillance with which he had
ever come in contact. Once, in the past, he had found himself
pitted against the secret police of Moscow, and hitherto he had
counted their methods incomparable. Unless he was the victim of
an unpleasant hallucination, those Russian spies had their peers
in London.

As he alighted from a cab before the house of the late Sir
Charles, Benson opened the door. "We have just finished, sir," he
said, as Harley ran up the steps. "But Mrs. Howett would like to
see you, sir."

"Very good, Benson," replied Harley, handing his hat and cane to
the butler. "I will see her in the dining room, please."

Benson throwing open the door, Paul Harley walked into the room
which so often figured in his vain imaginings. The table was laid
for dinner in accordance with his directions. The chair which he
remembered to have occupied was in place and that in which Sir
Charles had died was set at the head of the table.

Brows contracted, Harley stood just inside the room, looking
slowly about him. And, as he stood so, an interrogatory cough
drew his gaze to the doorway. He turned sharply, and there was
Mrs. Howett, a pathetic little figure in black.

"Ah, Mrs. Howett," said Harley; kindly, "please try to forgi ve me
for this unpleasant farce with its painful memories. But I have a
good reason. I think you know this. Now, as I am naturally
anxious to have everything clear before Miss Abingdon returns,
will you be good enough to tell me if the table is at present set
exactly as on the night that Sir Charles and I came in to

"No, Mr. Harley," was the answer, "that was what I was anxious to
explain. The table is now laid as Benson left it on that dreadful

"Ah, I see. Then you, personally, made some modifications?"

"I rearranged the flowers and moved the centre vase so." The
methodical old lady illustrated her words. "I also had the
dessert spoons changed. You remember, Benson?"

Benson inclined his head. From a sideboard he took out two silver
spoons which he substituted for those already set upon the table.

"Anything else, Mrs. Howett?"

"The table is now as I left it, sir, a few minutes before your
arrival. Just after your arrival I found Jones, the
parlourmaid--a most incompetent, impudent girl--altering the
position of the serviettes. At least, such was my impression."
"Of the serviettes?" murmured Harley.

"She denied it," continued the housekeeper, speaking with great
animation; "but she could give no explanation. It was the last
straw. She took too many liberties altogether."

As Harley remained silent, the old lady ran on animatedly, but
Harley was no longer listening.

"This is not the same table linen?" he asked, suddenly.

"Why, no, sir," replied Benson. "Last week's linen will be at the

"It has not gone yet," interrupted Mrs. Howett. "I was making up
the list when you brought me Mr. Harley's message."

Paul Harley turned to her.

"May I ask you to bring the actual linen used at table on that
occasion, Mrs. Howett?" he said. "My request must appear
singular, I know, but I assure you it is no idle one."

Benson looked positively stupid, but Mrs. Howett, who had
conceived a sort of reverence for Paul Harley, hurried away

"Finally, Benson," said Harley, "what else did you bring into the
room after Sir Charles and I had entered?"

"Soup, sir. Here is the tureen, on the sideboard, and all the
soup plates of the service in use that night. Of course, sir, I
can't say which were the actual plates used."

Paul Harley inspected the plates, a set of fine old Derby ware,
and gazed meditatively at the silver ladle. "Did the maid, Jones,
handle any of these?" he asked.

"No, sir"--emphatically. "She was preparing to bring the trout
from the kitchen."

"But I saw her in the room."

"She had brought in the fish plates, a sauce boat, and two toast
racks, sir. She put them here, on the sideboard. But they were
never brought to the table."

"H'm. Has Jones left?"

"Yes, sir. She was under notice. But after her rudeness, Mrs.
Howett packed her off right away. She left the very next day
after poor Sir Charles died."
"Where has she gone?"

"To a married sister, I believe, until she finds a new job. Mrs.
Howett has the address."

At this moment Mrs. Howett entered, bearing a tablecloth and a
number of serviettes.

"This was the cloth," she said, spreading it out, "but which of
the serviettes were used I cannot say."

"Allow me to look," replied Paul Harley.

One by one he began to inspect the serviettes, opening each in
turn and examining it critically.

"What have we here!" he exclaimed, presently. "Have blackberries
been served within the week, Mrs. Howett?"

"We never had them on the table, Mr. Harley. Sir Charles--God
rest him--said they irritated the stomach. Good gracious!" She
turned to Benson. "How is it I never noticed those stains, and
what can have caused them?"

The serviette which Paul Harley held outstretched was covered all
over with dark purple spots.


Rising from the writing table in the library, Paul Harley crossed
to the mantelpiece and stared long and hungrily at a photograph
in a silver frame. So closely did he concentrate upon it that he
induced a sort of auto-hypnosis, so that Phil Abingdon seemed to
smile at him sadly. Then a shadow appeared to obscure the piquant
face. The soft outline changed, subtly; the lips grew more full,
became voluptuous; the eyes lengthened and grew languorous. He
found himself looking into the face of Ormuz Khan.

"Damn it!" he muttered, awakened from his trance.

He turned aside, conscious of a sudden, unaccountable chill. It
might have been caused by the mental picture which he had
conjured up, or it might be another of those mysterious warnings
of which latterly he had had so many without encountering any
positive danger. He stood quite still, listening.

Afterward he sometimes recalled that moment, and often enough
asked himself what he had expected to hear. It was from this
room, on an earlier occasion, that he had heard the ominous
movements in the apartment above. To-day he heard nothing.

"Benson," he called, opening the library door. As the man came
along the hall: "I have written a note to Mr. Innes, my
secretary," he explained. "There it is, on the table. When the
district messenger, for whom you telephoned, arrives, give him
the parcel and the note. He is to accept no other receipt than
that of Mr. Innes."

"Very good, sir."

Harley took his hat and cane, and Benson opened the front door.

"Good day, sir," said the butler.

"Good day, Benson," called Harley, hurrying out to the waiting
cab. "Number 236 South Lambeth Road," he directed the man.

Off moved the taxi, and Harley lay back upon the cushions heaving
a long sigh. The irksome period of inaction was ended. The cloud
which for a time had dulled his usually keen wits was lifted. He
was by no means sure that enlightenment had come in time, but at
least he was in hot pursuit of a tangible clue, and he must hope
that it would lead him, though tardily, to the heart of this
labyrinth which concealed--what?

Which concealed something, or someone, known and feared as

For the moment he must focus upon establishing, beyond query or
doubt, the fact that Sir Charles Abingdon had not died from
natural causes. Premonitions, intuitions, beliefs resting upon a
foundation of strange dreams--these were helpful to himself, if
properly employed, but they were not legal evidence. This first
point achieved, the motive of the crime must be sought; and
then--the criminal.

"One thing at a time," Harley finally murmured.

Turning his head, he glanced back at the traffic in the street
behind him. The action was sheerly automatic. He had ceased to
expect to detect the presence of any pursuer. Yet he was
convinced that his every movement was closely watched. It was
uncanny, unnerving, this consciousness of invisible surveillance.
Now, as he looked, he started. The invisible had become the

His cab was just on the point of turning on to the slope of
Vauxhall Bridge. And fifty yards behind, speeding along the
Embankment, was a small French car. The features of the driver he
had no time to observe. But, peering eagerly through the window,
showed the dark face of the passenger. The man's nationality it
was impossible to determine, but the keen, almost savage
interest, betrayed by the glittering black eyes, it was equally
impossible to mistake.

If the following car had turned on to the bridge, Harley, even
yet, might have entertained a certain doubt. But, mentally
putting himself in the pursuer's place, he imagined himself
detected and knew at once exactly what he should do. Since this
hypothetical course was actually pursued by the other, Harley's
belief was confirmed.

Craning his neck, he saw the little French car turn abruptly and
proceed in the direction of Victoria Station. Instantly he acted.

Leaning out of the window he thrust a ten-shilling note into the
cabman's hand. "Slow down, but don't pull up," he directed. "I am
going to jump out just as you pass that lorry ahead. Ten yards
further on stop. Get down and crank your engine, and then proceed
slowly over the bridge. I shall not want you again."

"Right-oh, sir," said the man, grinning broadly. As a result,
immediately he was afforded the necessary cover, Harley jumped
from the cab. The man reached back and closed the door,
proceeding on his leisurely way. Excepting the driver of the
lorry, no one witnessed this eccentric performance, and Harley,
stepping on to the footpath, quietly joined the stream of
pedestrians and strolled slowly along.

He presently passed the stationary cab without giving any si gn of
recognition to the dismounted driver. Then, a minute later, the
cab overtook him and was soon lost in the traffic ahead. Even as
it disappeared another cab went by rapidly.

Leaning forward in order to peer through the front window was the
dark-faced man whom he had detected on the Embankment!

"Quite correct," murmured Harley, dryly. "Exactly what I should
have done."

The spy, knowing himself discovered, had abandoned his own car in
favour of a passing taxicab, and in the latter had take n up the

Paul Harley lighted a cigarette. Oddly enough, he was aware of a
feeling of great relief. In the first place, his sixth sense had
been triumphantly vindicated; and, in the second place, his
hitherto shadowy enemies, with their seemingly supernatural
methods, had been unmasked. At least they were human, almost
incredibly clever, but of no more than ordinary flesh and blood.

The contest had developed into open warfare. Harley's accurate
knowledge of London had enabled him to locate No. 236 South
Lambeth Road without recourse to a guide, and now, walking on
past the big gas works and the railway station, he turned under
the dark arches and pressed on to where a row of unprepossessing
dwellings extended in uniform ugliness from a partly demolished
building to a patch of waste ground.

That the house was being watched he did not doubt. In fact, he no
longer believed subterfuge to be of any avail. He was dealing
with dangerously accomplished criminals. How clever they were he
had yet to learn; and it was only his keen intuitive which at
this juncture enabled him to score a point over his cunning

He walked quite openly up the dilapidated steps to the door of
No. 236, and was about to seize the dirty iron knocker when the
door opened suddenly and a girl came out. She was dressed neatly
and wore a pseudo fashionable hat from which a heavy figured veil
depended so as almost to hide her features. She was carrying a
bulging cane grip secured by a brown leather strap.

Seeing Harley on the step, she paused for a moment, then,
recovering herself:

"Ellen!" she shouted down the dim passageway revealed by the
opening of the door. "Somebody to see you."

Leaving the door open, she hurried past the visitor with averted
face. It was well done, and, thus disguised by the thick veil,
another man than Paul Harley might have failed to recognize one
of whom he had never had more than an imperfect glimpse. But if
Paul Harley's memory did not avail him greatly, his unerring
instinct never failed.

He grasped the girl's arm. "One moment, Miss Jones," he said,
quietly, "it is you I am here to see!"

The girl turned angrily, snatching her arm from his grasp.
"You've made a mistake, haven't you?" she cried, furiou sly. "I
don't know you and I don't want to!"

"Be good enough to step inside again. Don't make a scene. If you
behave yourself, you have nothing to fear. But I want to talk to

He extended his arm to detain her. But she thrust it aside. "My
boy's waiting round the corner!" she said, viciously. "Just see
what he'll do when I tell him!"

"Step inside," repeated Harley, quietly. "Or accompany me to
Kennington Lane Police Station--whichever you think would be the
more amusing."

"What d'you mean!" blustered the girl. "You can't kid me. I
haven't done anything."

"Then do as I tell you. You have got to answer my
questions--either here or at the station. Which shall it be?"

He had realized the facts of the situation from the moment when
the girl had made her sudden appearance, and he knew that his
only chance of defeating his cunning opponents was to frighten
her. Delicate measures would be wasted upon such a character. But
even as the girl, flinging herself sullenly about, returned into
the passage, he found himself admiring the resourcefulness of his
unknown enemies.

A tired-looking woman carrying a child appeared from somewhere
and stared apathetically at Harley.

Addressing the angry girl: "Another o' your flames, Polly?" she
inquired in a dull voice. "Has he made you change your mind

The girl addressed as "Polly" dropped her grip on the floor and,
banging open a door, entered a shabby little sitting room,
followed by Harley. Dropping onto a ragged couch, she stared
obstinately out of the dirty window.

"Excuse me, madam, for intruding," said Harley to the woman with
the baby, "but Polly has some information of use to the police.
Oh, don't be alarmed. She has committed no crime. I shall only
detain her for a few minutes."

He bowed to the tired-looking woman and closed the sitting-room
door. "Now, young woman," he said, sternly, adopting this
official manner of his friend, Inspector Wessex, "I am going to
give you one warning, and one only. Although I don't think you
know it, you have got mixed up with a gang of crooks. Play the
game with me, and I'll stand by you. Try any funny business and
you'll go to jail."

The official manner had its effect. Miss Jones looked sharply
across at the speaker. "I haven't done anything," she said,

Paul Harley advanced and stood over her. "What about the trick
with the serviettes at Sir Charles Abingdon's?" he asked,
speaking the words in slow and deliberate fashion.

The shaft went home, but the girl possessed a stock of obstinate
courage. "What about it?" she inquired, but her voice had

"Who made you do it?"

"What's that to you?"

Paul Harley drew out his watch, glanced at the face, and returned
the timepiece to his pocket. "I have warned you," he said. "In
exactly three minutes' time I shall put you under arrest."

The girl suddenly lifted her veil and, raising her face, looked
up at him. At last he had broken down her obstinate resistance.
Already he had noted the coarse, elemental formation of her
hands, and now, the veil removed, he saw that she belonged to a
type of character often found in Wales and closely duplicated in
certain parts of London. There was a curious flatness of feature
and prominence of upper jaw singularly reminiscent of the
primitive Briton. Withal the girl was not unprepossessing in her
coarse way. Utter stupidity and dogged courage are the
outstanding characteristics of this type. But fear of the law is
strong within them.

"Don't arrest me," she said. "I'll tell you."

"Good. In the first place, then, where were you going when I came

"To meet my boy at Vauxhall Station."

"What is his name?"

"I'm not going to tell you. What's he done?"

"He has done murder. What is his name?"

"My God!" whispered the girl, and her face blanched swiftly.
"Murder! I--I can't tell you his name--"

"You mean you won't?"

She did not answer.

"He is a very dark man," continued Harley "with black eyes. He is
a Hindu."

The girl stared straight before her, dumbly.

"Answer me!" shouted Harley.

"Yes--yes! He is a foreigner."

"A Hindu?"

"I think so."

"He was here five minutes ago?"


"Where was he going to take you?"

"I don't know. He said he could put me in a good job out of
London. We had only ten minutes to catch the train. He's gone to
get the tickets."

"Where did you meet him?"

"In the Green Park."

"About a month ago."

"Was he going to marry you?"


"What did you do to the serviettes on the night Sir Charles

"Oh, my God! I didn't do anything to hurt him--I didn't do
anything to hurt him!"

"Answer me."


"Oh, he called himself Sidney, did he? It isn't his name. But go

"He asked me to get one of the serviettes, with the ring, and to
lend it to him."

"You did this?"

"Yes. But he brought it back."


"The afternoon--"

"Before Sir Charles's death? Yes. Go on. What did he tell you to
do with this serviette?"

"It--was in a box. He said I was not to open the box until I put
the serviette on the table, and that it had to be put by Sir
Charles's plate. It had to be put there just before the meal

"What else?"

"I had to burn the box."


"That night I couldn't see how it was to be done. Benson had laid
the dinner table and Mrs. Howett was pottering about. Then, when
I thought I had my chance, Sir Charles sat down in the dining
room and began to read. He was still there and I had the box
hidden in the hall stand, all ready, when Sidney --rang up."

"Rang you up?"
"Yes. We had arranged it. He said he was my brother. I had to
tell him I couldn't do it."


"He said: 'You must.' I told him Sir Charles was in the dining
room, and he said: 'I'll get him away. Directly he goes, don't
fail to do what I told you.'"

"And then?"

"Another 'phone call came--for Sir Charles. I knew who it was,
because I had told Sidney about the case Sir Charles was
attending in the square. When Sir Charles went out I changed the
serviettes. Mrs. Howett found me in the dining room and played
hell. But afterward I managed to burn the box in the kitchen.
That's all I know. What harm was there?"

"Harm enough!" said Harley, grimly. "And now--what was it that
'Sidney' stole from Sir Charles's bureau in the study?"

The girl started and bit her lip convulsively. "It wasn't
stealing," she muttered. "It wasn't worth anything."

"Answer me. What did he take?"

"He took nothing."

"For the last time: answer."

"It wasn't Sidney who took it. I took it."

"You took what?"

"A paper."

"You mean that you stole Sir Charles's keys and opened his

"There was no stealing. He was out and they were lying on his
dressing table. Sidney had told me to do it the first time I got
a chance."

"What had he told you to do?"

"To search through Sir Charles's papers and see if there was
anything with the word 'Fire-Tongue' in it!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Harley, a note of suppressed triumph in his
voice. "Go on."

"There was only one paper about it," continued the girl, now
speaking rapidly, "or only one that I could find. I put the
bureau straight again and took this paper to Sidney."

"But you must have read the paper?"

"Only a bit of it. When I came to the word 'Fire-Tongue,' I
didn't read any more."

"What was it about--the part you did read?"

"The beginning was all about India. I couldn't understand it. I
jumped a whole lot. I hadn't much time and I was afraid Mrs.
Howett would find me. Then, further on, I came to 'Fire -Tongue'."

"But what did it say about 'Fire-Tongue'?"

"I couldn't make it out, sir. Oh, indeed I'm telling you the
truth! It seemed to me that Fire-Tongue was some sort of mark."


"Yes--a mark Sir Charles had seen in India, and then again in

"In London! Where in London?"

"On someone's arm."

"What! Tell me the name of this person!"

"I can't remember, sir! Oh, truly I can't."

"Was the name mentioned?"


"Was it Armand?"




"Anything like Ormond?"

The girl shook her head.

"It was not Ormuz Khan?"

"No. I am sure it wasn't."

Paul Harley's expression underwent a sudden change. "Was it
Brown?" he asked.
She hesitated. "I believe it did begin with a B," she admitted.

"Was it Brunn?"

"No! I remember, sir. It was Brinn!"

"Good God!" muttered Harley. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Do you know any one of that name?"

"No, sir."

"And is this positively all you remember?"

"On my oath, it is."

"How often have you seen Sidney since your dismissal?"

"I saw him on the morning I left."

"And then not again until to-day?"


"Does he live in London?"

"No. He is a valet to a gentleman who lives in the country."

"How do you know?"

"He told me."

"What is the name of the place?"

"I don't know."

"Once again--what is the name of the place?"

The girl bit her lip.

"Answer!" shouted Harley.

"I swear, sir," cried the girl, beginning suddenly to sob, "that
I don't know! Oh, please let me go! I swear I have told you all I


Paul Harley glanced at his watch, crossed the room, and opened
the door. He turned. "You can go now," he said. "But I don't
think you will find Sidney waiting!"
It wanted only three minutes to midnight, and Innes, rather
haggard and anxious-eyed, was pacing Paul Harley's private office
when the 'phone bell rang. Eagerly he took up the receiver.

"Hullo!" came a voice. "That you, Innes?"

"Mr. Harley!" cried Innes. "Thank God you are safe! I was growing
desperately anxious!"

"I am by no means safe, Innes! I am in one of the tightest
corners of my life! Listen: Get Wessex! If he's off duty, get
Burton. Tell him to bring--"

The voice ceased.

"Hullo!--Mr. Harley!" called Innes. "Mr. Harley!"

A faint cry answered him. He distinctly heard the sound of a
fall. Then the other receiver was replaced on the hook.

"Merciful Heavens!" whispered Innes. "What has happened? Where
was he speaking from? What can I do?"


It was close upon noon, but Nicol Brinn had not yet left his
chambers. From that large window which overlooked Piccadilly he
surveyed the prospect with dull, lack-lustre eyes. His morning
attire was at least as tightly fitting as that which he favoured
in the evening, and now, hands clasped behind his back and an
unlighted cigar held firmly in the left corner of his mouth, he
gazed across the park with a dreamy and vacant regard. One very
familiar with this strange and taciturn man might have observed
that his sallow features looked even more gaunt than usual. But
for any trace of emotion in that stoic face the most expert
physiognomist must have sought in vain.

Behind the motionless figure the Alaskan ermine and Manchurian
leopards stared glassily across the room. The flying lemur
continued apparently to contemplate the idea of swooping upon the
head of the tigress where she crouched upon her near-by pedestal.
The death masks grinned; the Egyptian priestess smiled. And Nicol
Brinn, expressionless, watched the traffic in Piccadilly.

There came a knock at the door.

"In," said Nicol Brinn.

Hoskins, his manservant, entered: "Detective Inspector Wessex
would like to see you, sir."

Nicol Brinn did not turn around. "In," he repeated.
Silently Hoskins retired, and, following a short interval,
ushered into the room a typical detective officer, a Scotland
Yard man of the best type. For Detective Inspector Wessex no less
an authority than Paul Harley had predicted a brilliant future,
and since he had attained to his present rank while still a
comparatively young man, the prophecy of the celebrated private
investigator was likely to be realized. Nicol Brinn turned and
bowed in the direction of a large armchair.

"Pray sit down, Inspector," he said.

The high, monotonous voice expressed neither surprise nor
welcome, nor any other sentiment whatever.

Detective Inspector Wessex returned the bow, placed his bowler
hat upon the carpet, and sat down in the armchair. Nicol Brinn
seated himself upon a settee over which was draped a very fine
piece of Persian tapestry, and stared at his visitor with eyes
which expressed nothing but a sort of philosophic stupidity, but
which, as a matter of fact, photographed the personality of the
man indelibly upon that keen brain.

Detective Inspector Wessex cleared his throat and did not appear
to be quite at ease.

"What is it?" inquired Nicol Brinn, and proceeded to light his

"Well, sir," said the detective, frankly, "it's a mighty awkward
business, and I don't know just how to approach it."

"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."



"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 g aze 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 dama ge."

"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

Nicol Brinn stared blankly at the speaker. "He told him that?

"That he was coming here?"

"He did."

Nicol Brinn sat down again upon the settee. "Detective
Inspector," said he, "I give you my word of honour as a gentleman
that I last saw Mr. Paul Harley at ten-fifteen on Wednesday
night. Since then, not only have I not seen him, but I have
received no communication from him."

The keen glance of the detective met and challenged the dull
glance of the speaker. "I accept your word, sir," said Wessex,
finally, and he sighed and scratched his chin in the manner of a
man hopelessly puzzled.

Silence fell again. The muted sounds of Piccadilly became audible
in the stillness. Cabs and cars rolled by below, their occupants
all unaware of the fact that in that long, museumlike room above
their heads lay the key to a tragedy and the clue to a myste ry.

"Look here, sir," said the detective, suddenly, "the result of
Mr. Paul Harley's investigations right up to date has been placed
in my hands, together with all his notes. I wonder if you realize
the fact that, supposing Mr. Harley does not return, I am in
repossession of sufficient evidence to justify me in putting you
under arrest?"

"I see your point quite clearly," replied Nicol Brinn. "I have
seen my danger since the evening that Mr. Paul Harley walked into
this room: but I'll confess I did not anticipate this particular

"To get right down to business," said Wessex, "if Mr. Paul Harley
did not come here, where, in your idea, did he go?"

Nicol Brinn considered the speaker meditatively. "If I knew
that," said he, "maybe I could help. I told him here in this very
room that the pair of us were walking on the edge of hell. I
don't like to say it, and you don't know all it means, but in my
opinion he has taken a step too far."

Detective Inspector Wessex stood up impatiently. "You have
already talked in that strain to Mr. Harley," he said, a bit
brusquely. "Mr. Innes has reported something of the conversation
to me. But I must ask you to remember that, whereas Mr. Paul
Harley is an unofficial investigator, I am an officer of the
Criminal Investigation Department, and figures of speech are of
no use to me. I want facts. I want plain speaking. I ask you for
help and you answer in parables. Now perhaps I am saying too
much, and perhaps I am not, but that Mr. Harley was right in what
he believed, the circumstances of his present disappearance go to
prove. He learned too much about something called Fire-Tongue."

Wessex spoke the word challengingly, staring straight into the
eyes of Nicol Brinn, but the latter gave no sign, and Wessex,
concealing his disappointment, continued: "You know more about
Fire-Tongue than you ever told Mr. Paul Harley. All you know I
have got to know. Mr. Harley has been kidnapped, perhaps done to

"Why do you say so?" asked Nicol Brinn, rapidly.

"Because I know it is so. It does not matter how I know."

"You are certain that his absence is not voluntary?"

"We have definite evidence to that effect."

"I don't expect you to be frank with me, Detective Inspector, but
I'll be as frank with you as I can be. I haven't the slightest
idea in the world where Mr. Harley is. But I have information
which, if I knew where he was, would quite possibly enable me to
rescue him."

"Provided he is alive!" added Wessex, angrily.

"What leads you to suppose that he is not?"

"If he is alive, he is a prisoner."

"Good God!" said Nicol Brinn in a low voice. "It has come." He
took a step toward the detective. "Mr. Wessex," he continued, "I
don't tell you to do whatever your duty indicates; I know you
will do it. But in the interests of everybody concerned I have a
request to make. Have me watched if you like--I suppose that's
automatic. But whatever happens, and wherever your suspicions
point, give me twenty-four hours. As I think you can see, I am a
man who thinks slowly, but moves with a rush. You can believe me
or not, but I am even more anxious than you are to see this thing
through. You think I know what lies back of it all, and I don't
say that you are not right. But one thing you don't know, and
that thing I can't tell you. In twenty-four hours I might be able
to tell you. Whatever happens, even if poor Harley is found dead,
don't hamper my movements between now and this time tomorrow."

Wessex, who had been watching the speaker intently, suddenly held
out his hand. "It's a bet!" he said. "It's my case, and I'll
conduct it in my own way."

"Mr. Wessex," replied Nicol Brinn, taking the extended hand, "I
think you are a clever man. There are questions you w ould like to
ask me, and there are questions I would like to ask you. But we
both realize the facts of the situation, and we are both silent.
One thing I'll say: You are in the deadliest peril you have ever
known. Be careful. Believe me I mean it. Be very careful."

Innes rose from the chair usually occupied by Paul Harley as
Detective Inspector Wessex, with a very blank face, walked into
the office. Innes looked haggard and exhibited unmistakable signs
of anxiety. Since he had received that dramatic telephone message
from his chief he had not spared himself for a moment. The
official machinery of Scotland Yard was at work endeavouring to
trace the missing man, but since it had proved impossible to find
out from where the message had been sent, the investigation was
handicapped at the very outset. Close inquiries at the Savoy
Hotel had shown that Harley had not been there. Wessex, who was a
thorough artist within his limitations, had satisfied himself
that none of the callers who had asked for Ormuz Khan, and no one
who had loitered about the lobbies, could possibly have been even
a disguised Paul Harley.

To Inspector Wessex the lines along which Paul Harley was
operating remained a matter of profound amazement and
mystification. His interview with Mr. Nicol Brinn had only served
to baffle him more hopelessly than ever. The nature of Paul
Harley's inquiries--inquiries which, presumably from the death of
Sir Charles Abingdon, had led him to investigate the movements of
two persons of international repute, neither apparently having
even the most remote connection with anything crooked --was a
conundrum for the answer to which the detective inspector sought
in vain.

"I can see you have no news," said Innes, dully.

"To be perfectly honest," replied Wessex, "I feel like a man who
is walking in his sleep. Except for the extraordinary words
uttered by the late Sir Charles Abingdon, I fail to see that
there is any possible connection between his death and Mr. Nicol
Brinn. I simply can't fathom what Mr. Harley was working upon. To
my mind there is not the slightest evidence of foul play in the
case. There is no motive; apart from which, there is absolutely
no link."

"Nevertheless," replied Innes, slowly, "you know the chief, and
therefore you know as well as I do that he would not have
instructed me to communicate with you unless he had definite
evidence in his possession. It is perfectly clear that he was
interrupted in the act of telephoning. He was literally dragged
away from the instrument."

"I agree," said Wessex. "He had got into a tight corner somewhere
right enough. But where does Nicol Brinn come in?"

"How did he receive your communication?"

"Oh, it took him fairly between the eyes. There is no denying
that. He knows something."
"What he knows," said Innes, slowly, "is what Mr. Harley learned
last night, and what he fears is what has actually befallen the

Detective Inspector Wessex stood beside the Burmese cabinet,
restlessly drumming his fingers upon its lacquered surface. "I am
grateful for one thing," he said. "The press has not got hold of
this story."

"They need never get hold of it if you are moderately careful."

"For several reasons I am going to be more than moderately
careful. Whatever Fire-Tongue may be, its other name is sudden
death! It's a devil of a business; a perfect nightmare. But--" he

"I am wondering what on earth induced Mr. Harley to send that
parcel of linen to the analyst."

"The result of the analysis may prove that the chief was not
engaged upon any wild-goose chase."

"By heavens!" Wessex sprang up, his eyes brightened, and he
reached for his hat, "that gives me an idea!"

"The message with the parcel was written upon paper bearing the
letterhead of the late Sir Charles Abingdon. So Mr. Harley
evidently made his first call there! I'm off, sir! The trail
starts from that house!"

Leaving Innes seated at the big table with an expression of
despair upon his face, Detective Inspector Wessex set out. He
blamed himself for wasting time upon the obvious, for
concentrating too closely upon the clue given by Harley's last
words to Innes before leaving the office in Chancery Lane. It was
poor workmanship. He had hoped to take a short cut, and it had
proved, as usual, to be a long one. Now, as he sat in a laggard
cab feeling that every minute wasted might be a matter of life
and death, he suddenly became conscious of personal anxiety. He
was a courageous, indeed a fearless, man, and he was
subconsciously surprised to find himself repeating the words of
Nicol Brinn: "Be careful--be very careful!" With all the ardour
of the professional, he longed to find a clue which should lead
him to the heart of the mystery.

Innes had frankly outlined the whole of Paul Harley's case to
date, and Detective Inspector Wessex, although he had not
admitted the fact, had nevertheless recognized that from start to
finish the thing did not offer one single line of inquiry which
he would have been capable of following up. That Paul Harley had
found material to work upon, had somehow picked up a definite
clue from this cloudy maze, earned the envious admiration of the
Scotland Yard man.
Arrived at his destination, he asked to see Miss Abingdon, and
was shown by the butler into a charmingly furnished little
sitting room which was deeply impressed with the personality of
its dainty owner. It was essentially and delightfully feminine.
Yet in the decorations and in the arrangement of the furniture
there was a note of independence which was almost a note of
defiance. Phyllis Abingdon, an appealingly pathetic figure in her
black dress, rose to greet the inspector.

"Don't be alarmed, Miss Abingdon," he said, kindly. "My visit
does not concern you personally in any way, but I thought perhaps
you might be able to help me trace Mr. Paul Harley."

Wessex had thus expressed himself with the best intentions, but
even before the words were fully spoken he realized with a sort
of shock that he could not well have made a worse opening. Phil
Abingdon's eyes seemed to grow alarmingly large. She stood quite
still, twisting his card between her supple fingers.

"Mr. Harley!" she whispered.

"I did not want to alarm you," said the detective, guiltily,
"but--" He stopped, at a loss for words.

"Has something happened to him?"

"I am sorry if I have alarmed you," he assured her, "but there is
some doubt respecting Mr. Harley's present whereabouts. Have you
any idea where he went when he left this house yesterday?"

"Yes, yes. I know where he went, quite well."

"Benson, the butler, told me all about it when I came in." Phil
Abingdon spoke excitedly, and took a step nearer Wessex. "He went
to call upon Jones, our late parlourmaid."

"Late parlourmaid?" echoed Wessex, uncomprehendingly.

"Yes. He seemed to think he had made a discovery of importance."

"Something to do with a parcel which he sent away from here to
the analyst?"

"Yes! I have been wondering whatever it could be. In fact, I rang
up his office this morning, but learned that he was out. It was a
serviette which he took away. Did you know that?"

"I did know it, Miss Abingdon. I called upon the analyst. I
understand you were out when Mr. Harley came. May I ask who
interviewed him?"

"He saw Benson and Mrs. Howett, the housekeeper."

"May I also see them?"
"Yes, with pleasure. But please tell me"--Phil Abingdon looked up
at him pleadingly--"do you think something--something dreadful has
happened to Mr. Harley?"

"Don't alarm yourself unduly," said Wessex. "I hope before the
day is over to be in touch with him."

As a matter of fact, he had no such hope. It was a lie intended
to console the girl, to whom the news of Harley's disappearance
seemed to have come as a terrible blow. More and more Wessex
found himself to be groping in the dark. And when, in response to
the ringing of the bell, Benson came in and repeated what had
taken place on the previous day, the detective's state of
mystification grew even more profound. As a matter of routine
rather than with any hope of learning anything useful, he
interviewed Mrs. Howett; but the statement of the voluble old
lady gave no clue which Wessex could perceive to possess the
slightest value.

Both witnesses having been dismissed, he turned again to Phil
Abingdon, who had been sitting watching him with a pathetic light
of hope in her eyes throughout his examination of the butler and
Mrs. Howett.

"The next step is clear enough," he said, brightly. "I am off to
South Lambeth Road. The woman Jones is the link we are looking

"But the link with what, Mr. Wessex?" asked Phil Abingdon. "What
is it all about?--what does it all mean?"

"The link with Mr. Paul Harley," replied Wessex. He moved toward
the door.

"But won't you tell me something more before you go?" said the
girl, beseechingly. "I--I--feel responsible if anything has
happened to Mr. Harley. Please be frank with me. Are you afraid
he is--in danger?"

"Well, miss," replied the detective, haltingly, "he rang up his
secretary, Mr. Innes, last night--we don't know where from--and
admitted that he was in a rather tight corner. I don't believe
for a moment that he is in actual danger, but he probably has--"
again he hesitated--"good reasons of his own for remaining absent
at present."

Phil Abingdon looked at him doubtingly. "I am almost afraid to
ask you," she said in a low voice, "but--if you hear anything,
will you ring me up?"

"I promise to do so."

Chartering a more promising-looking cab than that in which he had
come, Detective Inspector Wessex proceeded to 236 South Lambeth
Road. He had knocked several times before the door was opened by
the woman to whom the girl Jones had called on the occasion of
Harley's visit.

"I am a police officer," said the detective inspector, "and I
have called to see a woman named Jones, formerly in the employ of
Sir Charles Abingdon."

"Polly's gone," was the toneless reply.

"Gone? Gone where?"

"She went away last night to a job in the country."

"What time last night?"

"I can't remember the time. Just after a gentleman had called
here to see her."

"Someone from the police?"

"I don't know. She seemed to be very frightened."

"Were you present when he interviewed her?"


"After he had gone, what did Polly do?"

"Sat and cried for about half an hour, then Sidney came for her."


"Her boy--the latest one."

"Describe Sidney."

"A dark fellow, foreign."


"No. A sort of Indian, like."

"Indian?" snapped Wessex. "What do you mean by Indian?"

"Very dark," replied the woman without emotion, swinging a baby
she held to and fro in a methodical way which the detective found
highly irritating.

"You mean a native of India?"

"Yes, I should think so. I never noticed him much. Polly has so
"How long has she known this man?"

"Only a month or so, but she is crazy about him."

"And when he came last night she went away with him?"

"Yes. She was all ready to go before the other gentleman called.
He must have told her something which made her think it was all
off, and she was crazy with joy when Sidney turned up. She had
all her things packed, and off she went."

Experience had taught Detective Inspector Wessex to recognize the
truth when he met it, and he did not doubt the statement of the
woman with the baby. "Can you give me any idea where this man
Sidney came from?" he asked.

"I am afraid I can't," replied the listless voice. "He was in the
service of some gentleman in the country; that's all I know about

"Did Polly leave no address to which letters were to be

"No; she said she would write."

"One other point," said Wessex, and he looked hard into the
woman's face: "What do you know about Fire-Tongue?"

He was answered by a stare of blank stupidity.

"You heard me?"

"Yes, I heard you, but I don't know what you are talking about."

Quick decisions are required from every member of the Criminal
Investigation Department, and Detective Inspector Wessex came to
one now.

"That will do for the present," he said, turned, and ran down the
steps to the waiting cab.


Dusk was falling that evening. Gaily lighted cars offering
glimpses of women in elaborate toilets and of their black -coated
and white-shirted cavaliers thronged Piccadilly, bound for
theatre or restaurant. The workaday shutters were pulled down,
and the night life of London had commenced. The West End was in
possession of an army of pleasure seekers, but Nicol Brinn was
not among their ranks. Wearing his tightly-buttoned dinner
jacket, he stood, hands clasped behind him, staring out of the
window as Detective Inspector Wessex had found him at noon. Only
one who knew him very well could have detected the fact that
anxiety was written upon that Sioux-like face. His gaze seemed to
be directed, not so much upon the fading prospect of the park, as
downward, upon the moving multitude in the street below. Came a
subdued knocking at the door.

"In," said Nicol Brinn.

Hoskins, the neat manservant, entered. "A lady to see you, sir."

Nicol Brinn turned in a flash. For one fleeting instant the
dynamic force beneath the placid surface exhibited itself in
every line of his gaunt face. He was transfigured; he was a man
of monstrous energy, of tremendous enthusiasm. Then the
enthusiasm vanished. He was a creature of stone again; the
familiar and taciturn Nicol Brinn, known and puzzled over in the
club lands of the world.


"She gave none."


"No, sir, a foreign lady."


Hoskins having retired, and having silently closed the door,
Nicol Brinn did an extraordinary thing, a thing which none of his
friends in London, Paris, or New York would ever have supposed
him capable of doing. He raised his clenched hands. "Please God
she has come," he whispered. "Dare I believe it? Dare I believe

The door was opened again, and Hoskins, standing just inside,
announced: "The lady to see you, sir."

He stepped aside and bowed as a tall, slender woman entered the
room. She wore a long wrap trimmed with fur, the collar turned up
about her face. Three steps forward she took and stopped. Hoskins
withdrew and closed the door.

At that, while Nicol Brinn watched her with completely
transfigured features, the woman allowed the cloak to slip from
her shoulders, and, raising her head, extended both her hands,
uttering a subdued cry of greeting that was almost a sob. She was
dark, with the darkness of the East, but beautiful with a beauty
that was tragic. Her eyes were glorious wells of sadness, seeming
to mirror a soul that had known a hundred ages. Withal she had
the figure of a girl, slender and supple, possessing the poetic
grace and poetry of movement born only in the Orient.
"Naida!" breathed Nicol Brinn, huskily. "Naida!"

His high voice had softened, had grown tremulous. He extended his
hands with a groping movement The woman laughed shudderingly.

Her cloak lying forgotten upon the carpet, she advanced toward

She wore a robe that was distinctly Oriental without being in the
slightest degree barbaric. Her skin was strangely fair, and
jewels sparkled upon her fingers. She conjured up dreams of the
perfumed luxury of the East, and was a figure to fire the
imagination. But Nicol Brinn seemed incapable of movement; his
body was inert, but his eyes were on fire. Into the woman's face
had come anxiety that was purely feminine.

"Oh, my big American sweetheart," she whispered, and, approaching
him with a sort of timidity, laid her little hands upon his arm.
"Do you still think I am beautiful?"


No man could have recognized the voice of Nicol Brinn. Su ddenly
his arms were about her like bands of iron, and with a long,
wondering sigh she lay back looking up into his face, while he
gazed hungrily into her eyes. His lips had almost met hers when
softly, almost inaudibly, she sighed: "Nicol!"

She pronounced the name queerly, giving to i the value of ee, and
almost dropping the last letter entirely.

Their lips met, and for a moment they clung together, this woman
of the East and man of the West, in utter transgression of that
law which England's poet has laid down. It was a reunion speaking
of a love so deep as to be sacred.

Lifting the woman in his arms lightly as a baby, he carried her
to the settee between the two high windows and placed her there
amid Oriental cushions, where she looked like an Eastern queen.
He knelt at her feet and, holding both her hands, looked into her
face with that wondering expression in which there was something
incredulous and something sorrowful; a look of great and selfless
tenderness. The face of Naida was lighted up, and her big eyes
filled with tears. Disengaging one of her jewelled hands, she
ruffled Nicol Brinn's hair.

"My Nicol," she said, tenderly. "Have I changed so much?"

Her accent was quaint and fascinating, but her voice was very
musical. To the man who knelt at her feet it was the sweetest
music in the world.

"Naida," he whispered. "Naida. Even yet I dare not believe that
you are here."
"You knew I would come?"

"How was I to know that you would see my message?"

She opened her closed left hand and smoothed out a scrap of torn
paper which she held there. It was from the "Agony" column of
that day's Times.

N. November 23, 1913. N. B. See Telephone Directory.

"I told you long, long ago that I would come if ever you wanted

"Long, long ago," echoed Nicol Brinn. "To me it has seemed a
century; to-night it seems a day."

He watched her with a deep and tireless content. Presently her
eyes fell. "Sit here beside me," she said. "I have not long to be
here. Put your arms round me. I have something to tell you."

He seated himself beside her on the settee, and held her close.
"My Naida!" he breathed softly.

"Ah, no, no!" she entreated. "Do you want to break my heart?"

He suddenly released her, clenched his big hands, and stared down
at the carpet. "You have broken mine."

Impulsively Naida threw her arms around his neck, coiling herself
up lithely and characteristically beside him.

"My big sweetheart," she whispered, crooningly. "Don't say
it--don't say it."

"I have said it. It is true."

Turning, fiercely he seized her. "I won't let you go!" he cried,
and there was a strange light in his eyes. "Before I was
helpless, now I am not. This time you have come to me, and you
shall stay."

She shrank away from him terrified, wild-eyed. "Oh, you forget,
you forget!"

"For seven years I have tried to forget. I have been mad, but
to-night I am sane."

"I trusted you, I trusted you!" she moaned.

Nicol Brinn clenched his teeth grimly for a moment, and then,
holding her averted face very close to his own, he began to speak
in a low, monotonous voice. "For seven years," he said, "I have
tried to die, because without you I did not care to live. I have
gone into the bad lands of the world and into the worst spots of
those bad lands. Night and day your eyes have watched me, and I
have wakened from dreams of your kisses and gone out to court
murder. I have earned the reputation of being something more than
human, but I am not. I had everything that life could give me
except you. Now I have got you, and I am going to keep you."

Naida began to weep silently. The low, even voice of Nicol Brinn
ceased. He could feel her quivering in his grasp; and, as she
sobbed, slowly, slowly the fierce light faded from his eyes.

"Naida, my Naida, forgive me," he whispered.

She raised her face, looking up to him pathetically. "I came to
you, I came to you," she moaned. "I promised long ago that I
would come. What use is it, all this? You know, you know! Kill me
if you like. How often have I asked you to kill me. It would be
sweet to die in your arms. But what use to talk so? You are in
great danger or you would not have asked me to come. If you don't
know it, I tell you--you are in great danger."

Nicol Brinn released her, stood up, and began slowly to pace
about the room. He deliberately averted his gaze from the settee.
"Something has happened," he began, "which has changed
everything. Because you are here I know that--someone else is

He was answered by a shuddering sigh, but he did not glance in
the direction of the settee.

"In India I respected what you told me. Because you were strong,
I loved you the more. Here in England I can no longer respect the
accomplice of assassins."

"Assassins? What, is this something new?"

"With a man's religion, however bloodthirsty it may be, I don't
quarrel so long as he sincerely believes in it. But for private
assassination I have no time and no sympathy." It was the old
Nicol Brinn who was speaking, coldly and incisively. "That--
something we both know about ever moved away from those Indian
hills was a possibility I had never considered. When it was
suddenly brought home to me that you, you, might be here in
London, I almost went mad. But the thing that made me realize it
was a horrible thing, a black, dastardly thing. See here."

He turned and crossed to where the woman was crouching, watching
him with wide-open, fearful eyes. He took both her hands and
looked grimly into her face. "For seven years I have walked
around with a silent tongue and a broken heart. All that is
finished. I am going to speak."

"Ah, no, no!" She was on her feet, her face a mask of tragedy.
"You swore to me, you swore to me!"
"No oath holds good in the face of murder."

"Is that why you bring me here? Is that what your message means?"

"My message means that because of--the thing you know about--I am
suspected of the murder."

"You? You?"

"Yes, I, I! Good God! when I realize what your presence here
means, I wish more than ever that I had succeeded in finding

"Please don't say it," came a soft, pleading voice. "What can I
do? What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to release me from that vow made seven years ago."

Naida uttered a stifled cry. "How is it possible? You understand
that it is not possible."

Nicol Brinn seized her by the shoulders. "Is it possible for me
to remain silent while men are murdered here in a civilized

"Oh," moaned Naida, "what can I do, what can I do?"

"Give me permission to speak and stay here. Leave the rest to

"You know I cannot stay, my Nicol," she replied, sadly.

"But," he said with deliberate slowness, "I won't let you go."

"You must let me go. Already I have been here too long."

He threw his arms around her and crushed her against him
fiercely. "Never again," he said. "Never again."

She pressed her little hands against his shoulders.

"Listen! Oh, listen!"

"I shall listen to nothing."

"But you must--you must! I want to make you understand something.
This morning I see your note in the papers. Every day, every day
for seven whole long years, wherever I have been, I have looked.
In the papers of India. Sometimes in the papers of France, of

"I never even dreamed that you left India," said Nicol Brinn,
hoarsely. "It was through the Times of India that I said I would
communicate with you."

"Once we never left India. Now we do--sometimes. But listen. I
prepared to come when--he--"

Nicol Brinn's clasp of Naida tightened cruelly.

"Oh, you hurt me!" she moaned. "Please let me speak. He gave me
your name and told me to bring you!"

"What! What!"

Nicol Brinn dropped his arms and stood, as a man amazed, watching

"Last night there was a meeting outside London."

"You don't want me to believe there are English members?"

"Yes. There are. Many. But let me go on. Somehow --somehow I don't
understand--he finds you are one--"

"My God!"

"And you are not present last night! Now, do you understand? So
he sends me to tell you that a car will be waiting at nine
o'clock to-night outside the Cavalry Club. The driver will be a
Hindu. You know what to say. Oh, my Nicol, my Nicol, go for my
sake! You know it all! You are clever. You can pretend. You can
explain you had no call. If you refuse--"

Nicol Brinn nodded grimly. "I understand! But, good God! How has
he found out? How has he found out?"

"I don't know!" moaned Naida. "Oh, I am frightened --so

A discreet rap sounded upon the door.

Nicol Brinn crossed and stood, hands clasped behind him, before
the mantelpiece. "In," he said.

Hoskins entered. "Detective Sergeant Stokes wishes to see you at
once, sir."

Brinn drew a watch from his waistcoat pocket. Attached to it was
a fob from which depended a little Chinese Buddha. He consulted
the timepiece and returned it to his pocket.

"Eight-twenty-five," he muttered, and glanced across to where
Naida, wide-eyed, watched him. "Admit Detective Sergeant Stokes
at eight-twenty-six, and then lock the door."

"Very good, sir."
Hoskins retired imperturbably.


Detective Sergeant Stokes was a big, dark, florid man, the word
"constable" written all over him. Indeed, as Wessex had
complained more than once, the mere sound of Stokes's footsteps
was a danger signal for any crook. His respect for his immediate
superior, the detective inspector, was not great. The methods of
Wessex savoured too much of the French school to appeal to one of
Stokes's temperament and outlook upon life, especially upon that
phase of life which comes within the province of the criminal

Wessex's instructions with regard to Nicol Brinn had been
succinct: "Watch Mr. Brinn's chambers, make a note of all his
visitors, but take no definite steps respecting him personally
without consulting me."

Armed with these instructions, the detective sergeant had
undertaken his duties, which had proved more or less tedious up
to the time that a fashionably attired woman of striking but
unusual appearance had inquired of the hall porter upon which
floor Mr. Nicol Brinn resided.

In her manner the detective sergeant had perceived something
furtive. There was a hunted look in her eyes, too.

When, at the end of some fifteen or twenty minutes, she failed to
reappear, he determined to take the initiative himself. By
intruding upon this prolonged conference he hoped to learn
something of value. Truth to tell, he was no master of finesse,
and had but recently been promoted from an East End district
where prompt physical action was of more value than subtlety.

As a result, then, he presently found himself in the presence of
the immovable Hoskins; and having caused his name to be
announced, he was requested to wait in the lobby for one minute.
Exactly one minute had elapsed when he was shown into that long,
lofty room, which of late had been the scene of strange

Nicol Brinn was standing before the fireplace, hands clasped
behind him, and a long cigar protruding from the left corner of
his mouth. No one else was present, so far as the detective could
see, but he glanced rapidly about the room in a way which told
the man who was watching that he had expected to find another
present. He looked into the unfathomable, light blue eyes of
Nicol Brinn, and became conscious of a certain mental confusion.

"Good evening, sir," he said, awkwardly. "I am acting in the case
concerning the disappearance of Mr. Paul Harley."

"Yes," replied Brinn.

"I have been instructed to keep an eye on these chambers."

"Yes," repeated the high voice.

"Well, sir"--again he glanced rapidly about-"I don't want to
intrude more than necessary, but a lady came in here about half
an hour ago."

"Yes," drawled Brinn. "It's possible."

"It's a fact," declared the detective sergeant. "If it isn't
troubling you too much, I should like to know that lady's name.
Also, I should like a chat with her before she leaves."

"Can't be done," declared Nicol Brinn. "She isn't here."

"Then where is she?"

"I couldn't say. She went some time ago."

Stokes stood squarely before Nicol Brinn--a big, menacing figure;
but he could not detect the slightest shadow of expression upon
the other's impassive features. He began to grow angry. He was of
that sanguine temperament which in anger acts hastily.

"Look here, sir," he said, and his dark face flushed. "You can't
play tricks on me. I've got my duty to do, and I am going to do
it. Ask your visitor to step in here, or I shall search the

Nicol Brinn replaced his cigar in the right corner of his mouth:
"Detective Sergeant Stokes, I give you my word that the lady to
whom you refer is no longer in these chambers."

Stokes glared at him angrily. "But there is no other way out," he

"I shall not deal with this matter further," declared Brinn,
coldly. "I may have vices, but I never was a liar."

"Oh," muttered the detective sergeant, taken aback by the cold
incisiveness of the speaker. "Then perhaps you will lead the way,
as I should like to take a look around."

Nicol Brinn spread his feet more widely upon the hearthrug.
"Detective Sergeant Stokes," he said, "you are not playin g the
game. Inspector Wessex passed his word to me that for twenty -four
hours my movements should not be questioned or interfered with.
How is it that I find you here?"
Stokes thrust his hands in his pockets and coughed uneasily. "I
am not a machine," he replied; "and I do my own job in my own

"I doubt if Inspector Wessex would approve of your way."

"That's my business."

"Maybe, but it is no affair of yours to interfere with private
affairs of mine, Detective Sergeant. See here, there is no lady
in these chambers. Secondly, I have an appointment at nine
o'clock, and you are detaining me."

"What's more," answered Stokes, who had now quite lost his
temper, "I intend to go on detaining you until I have searched
these chambers and searched them thoroughly."

Nicol Brinn glanced at his watch. "If I leave in five minutes,
I'll be in good time," he said. "Follow me."

Crossing to the centre section of a massive bookcase, he opened
it, and it proved to be a door. So cunning was the design that
the closest scrutiny must have failed to detect any difference
between the dummy books with which it was decorated, and the
authentic works which filled the shelves to right and to left of
it. Within was a small and cosy study. In contrast with the
museum-like room out of which it opened, it was furnished in a
severely simple fashion, and one more experienced in the study of
complex humanity than Detective Sergeant Stokes must have
perceived that here the real Nicol Brinn spent his leisure hours.
Above the mantel was a life-sized oil painting of Mrs. Nicolas
Brinn; and whereas the great room overlooking Piccadilly was
exotic to a degree, the atmosphere of the study was markedly

Palpably there was no one there. Nor did the two bedrooms, the
kitchen, and the lobby afford any more satisfactory evidence.
Nicol Brinn led the way back from the lobby, through the small
study, and into the famous room where the Egyptian priestess
smiled eternally. He resumed his place upon the hearthrug.
"Are you satisfied, Detective Sergeant?"

"I am!" Stokes spoke angrily. "While you kept me talking, she
slipped out through that study, and down into the street."

"Ah," murmured Nicol Brinn.

"In fact, the whole business looks very suspicious to me,"
continued the detective.

"Sorry," drawled Brinn, again consulting his watch. "The five
minutes are up. I must be off."

"Not until I have spoken to Scotland Yard, sir."
"You wish to speak to Scotland Yard?"

"I do," said Stokes, grimly.

Nicol Brinn strode to the telephone, which stood upon a small
table almost immediately in front of the bookcase. The masked
door remained ajar.

"You are quite fixed upon detaining me?"

"Quite," said Stokes, watching him closely.

In one long stride Brinn was through the doorway, telephone in
hand! Before Stokes had time to move, the door closed violently,
in order, no doubt, to make it shut over the telephone cable
which lay under it!

Detective Sergeant Stokes fell back, gazed wildly at the false
books for a moment, and then, turning, leaped to the outer door.
It was locked!

In the meanwhile, Nicol Brinn, having secured the door which
communicated with the study, walked out into the lobby where
Hoskins was seated. Hoskins stood up.

"The lady went, Hoskins?"

"She did, sir."

Nicol Brinn withdrew the key from the door of the room in which
Detective Sergeant Stokes was confined. Stokes began banging
wildly upon the panels from within.

"That row will continue," Nicol Brinn said, coldly; "perhaps he
will shout murder from one of the windows. You have only to say
you had no key. I am going out now. The light coat, Hoskins."

Hoskins unemotionally handed coat, hat, and cane to his master
and, opening the front door, stood aside. The sound of a window
being raised became audible from within the locked room.

"Probably," added Nicol Brinn, "you will be arrested."

"Very good, sir," said Hoskins. "Good-night, sir..."


Some two hours after Paul Harley's examination of Jones, the
ex-parlourmaid, a shabby street hawker appeared in the Strand,
bearing a tray containing copies of "Old Moore's Almanac." He was
an ugly-looking fellow with a split lip, and appeared to hav e
neglected to shave for at least a week. Nobody appeared to be
particularly interested, and during his slow progression from
Wellington Street to the Savoy Hotel he smoked cigarettes almost
continuously. Trade was far from brisk, and the vendor of
prophecies filled in his spare time by opening car doors, for
which menial service he collected one three-penny bit and several

This commercial optimist was still haunting the courtyard of the
hotel at a time when a very handsome limousine p ulled up beside
the curb and a sprucely attired Hindu stepped out. One who had
been in the apartments of Ormuz Khan must have recognized his
excellency's private secretary. Turning to the chauffeur, a
half-caste of some kind, and ignoring the presence of the prophet
who had generously opened the door, "You will return at eight
o'clock," he said, speaking perfect and cultured English, "to
take his excellency to High Claybury. Make a note, now, as I
shall be very busy, reminding me to call at Lower Claybury
station for a parcel which will be awaiting me there."

"Yes, sir," replied the chauffeur, and he touched his cap as the
Hindu walked into the hotel.

The salesman reclosed the door of the car, and spat reflectively
upon the pavement.

Limping wearily, he worked his way along in the direction of
Chancery Lane. But, before reaching Chancery Lane, he plunged
into a maze of courts with which he was evidently well
acquainted. His bookselling enterprise presently terminated, as
it had commenced, at The Chancery Agency.

Once more safe in his dressing room, the pedler rapidly
transformed himself into Paul Harley, and Paul Harley, laying his
watch upon the table before him, lighted his pipe and indulged in
half an hour's close thinking.

His again electing to focus his attention upon Ormuz Khan was
this time beyond reproach. It was the course which logic
dictated. Until he had attempted the task earlier in the day, he
could not have supposed it so difficult to trace the country
address of a well-known figure like that of the Persian.

This address he had determined to learn, and, having learned it,
was also determined to inspect the premises. But for such a
stroke of good luck as that which had befallen him at the Savoy,
he could scarcely have hoped. His course now lay clearly before
him. And presently, laying his pipe aside, he took up a telephone
which stood upon the dressing table and rang up a garage with
which he had an account.

"Hello, is that you, Mason?" he said. "Have the racer to meet me
at seven o'clock, half-way along Pall Mall."
Never for a moment did he relax his vigilance. Observing every
precaution when he left The Chancery Agency, he spent the
intervening time at one of his clubs, from which, having made an
early dinner, he set off for Pall Mall at ten minutes to seven. A
rakish-looking gray car resembling a giant torpedo was
approaching slowly from the direction of Buckingham Palace. The
driver pulled up as Paul Harley stepped into the road, and
following a brief conversation Harley set out westward,
performing a detour before heading south for Lower Claybury, a
little town with which he was only slightly acquainted. No
evidence of espionage could he detect, but the note of danger
spoke intimately to his inner consciousness; so that when, the
metropolis left behind, he found himself in the hilly Surrey
countryside, more than once he pulled up, sitting silent for a
while and listening intently. He failed, always, to detect any
sign of pursuit.

The night was tropically brilliant, hot, and still, but saving
the distant murmur of the city, and ordinary comings and goings
along the country roads, there was nothing to account for a
growing anxiety of which he became conscious.

He was in gunshot of Old Claybury church tower, when the sight of
a haystack immediately inside a meadow gate suggested a likely
hiding place for the racer; and, having run the car under cover,
Harley proceeded on foot to the little railway station. He
approached a porter who leaned in the doorway. "Could you direct
me to the house of his excellency Ormuz Khan?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir," was the reply. "If you follow the uphill road on the
other side of the station until you come to the Manor Park--you
will see the gates--and then branch off to the right, taking the
road facing the gates. Hillside--that's the name of the house--is
about a quarter of a mile along."

Dusk was beginning to fall and, although the nature of his
proposed operations demanded secrecy, he recognized that every
hour was precious. Accordingly he walked immediately back to the
spot at which he had left the car and, following the porter's
directions, drove over the line at the level crossing immediately
beyond the station, and proceeded up a tree-lined road until he
found himself skirting the railing of an extensive tract of park

Presently heavy gates appeared in view; and then, to the right,
another lane in which the growing dusk had painted many shadows.
He determined to drive on until he should find a suitable hiding
place. And at a spot, as he presently learned, not a hundred
yards from Hillside, he discovered an opening in the hedge which
divided the road from a tilled field. Into this, without
hesitation, he turned the racer, backing in, in order that he
might be ready for a flying start in case of emergency. Once more
he set out on foot.
He proceeded with caution, walking softly close to the side of
the road, and frequently pausing to listen. Advancing in thi s
fashion, he found himself standing ere long before an open
gateway, and gazing along a drive which presented a vista of
utter blackness. A faint sound reached his ear--the distant drone
of a powerful engine. A big car was mounting the slope from Lower
Claybury Station.



Not until Harley came within sight of the house,   a low, rambling
Jacobean building, did he attempt to take cover.   He scrambled up
a tree and got astride of a wall. A swift survey   by his electric
torch of the ground on the other side revealed a   jungle of weeds
in either direction.

He uttered an impatient exclamation. He calculated that the car
was now within a hundred yards of the end of the lane. Suddenly
came an idea that was born of emergency. Swarming up the tree to
where its dense foliage began, he perched upon a stout bough and

Three minutes later came a blaze of light through the gathering
darkness, and the car which he had last seen at the Savoy was
turned into the drive, and presently glided smoothly past him

The interior lights were extinguished, so that he was unable to
discern the occupants. The house itself was also unilluminated.
And when the car pulled up before the porch, less than ten yards
from his observation post, he could not have recognized the
persons who descended and entered Hillside.

Indeed, only by the sound of the closing door did he know that
they had gone in. But two figures were easily discernible; and he
judged them to be those of Ormuz Khan and his secretary. He
waited patiently, and ere long the limousine was turned in the
little courtyard before the porch and driven out into the lane
again. He did not fail to note that, the lane regained, the
chauffeur headed, not toward Lower Claybury, but away from it.

He retained his position until the hum of the motor grew dim in
the distance, and was about to descend when he detected the sound
of a second approaching car! Acutely conscious of danger, he
remained where he was. Almost before the hum of the retiring
limousine had become inaudible, a second car entered the lane and
turned into the drive of Hillside.

Harley peered eagerly downward, half closing his eyes in order
that he might not be dazzled by the blaze of the headlight. This
was another limousine, its most notable characteristic being that
the blinds were drawn in all the windows.

On this occasion, when the chauffeur stepped around and opened
the door, only one passenger alighted. There seemed to be some
delay before he was admitted, but Harley found it impossible to
detect any details of the scene being enacted in the shadowed

Presently the second car was driven away, pursuing the same
direction as the first. Hot upon its departure came the drone of
a third. The windows of the third car also exhibited drawn
blinds. As it passed beneath him he stifled an exclamation of
triumph. Vaguely, nebulously, the secret of this dread thing
Fire-Tongue, which had uplifted its head in England, appeared
before his mind's eye. It was only necessary for him to assure
himself that the latest visitor had been admitted to the house
before the next move became possible. Accordingly he changed his
position, settling himself more comfortably upon the bough. And
now he watched the three cars perform each two journeys to some
spot or spots unknown, and, returning, deposit their passengers
before the porch of Hillside. The limousine used by Ormuz Khan,
upon its second appearance had partaken of the same peculiarity
as the others: there were blinds drawn inside the windows.

Paul Harley believed that he understood precisely what this
signified, and when, after listening intently in the stillness of
the night, he failed to detect sounds of any other approach, he
descended to the path and stole toward the dark house.

There were French windows upon the ground floor, all of them
closely shuttered. Although he recognized that he was taking
desperate chances, he inspected each one of them closely.

Passing gently from window to window, his quest ultimately earned
its reward. Through a crack in one of the shutters a dim light
shone out. His heart was beating uncomfortably, although he had
himself well in hand; and, crawling into the recess formed by the
window, he pressed his ear against a pane and listened intently.
At first he could hear nothing, but, his investigation being
aided by the stillness of the night, he presently became aware
that a voice was speaking within the room--deliberately,
musically. The beating of his heart seemed to make his body throb
to the very finger tips. He had recognized the voice to be the
voice of Ormuz Khan!

Now, his sense of hearing becoming attuned to the muffled tones,
he began to make out syllables, words, and, finally, sentences.
Darkness wrapped him about, so that no one watching could have
seen his face. But he himself knew that under the bronze which he
never lost he had grown pale. His heartbeats grew suddenly
fainter, an eerie chill more intense than any which the note of
danger had ever occasioned caused him to draw sharply back.
"My God!" he whispered. He drew his automatic swiftly from his
pocket, and, pressed against the wall beside the window, looked
about him as a man looks who finds himself surrounded by enemies.
Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the garden except for
sibilant rustlings of the leaves, occasioned by a slight breeze.

Paul Harley retreated step by step to the bushes. He held the
pistol tightly clenched in his right hand.

He had heard his own death sentence pronounced and he knew that
it was likely to be executed.


He regained the curve of the drive without meeting any
opposition. There, slipping the pistol into his pocket, he
climbed rapidly up the tree from which he had watched the arrival
of the three cars, climbed over the wall, and dropped into the
weed jungle beyond. He crept stealthily forward to the gap where
he had concealed the racer, drawing nearer and nearer to the
bushes lining the lane. Only by a patch of greater darkness
before him did he realize that he had reached it. But when the
realization came one word only he uttered: "Gone!"

His car had disappeared!

Despair was alien to his character: A true Englishman, he never
knew when he was beaten. Beyond doubt, now, he must accept the
presence of hidden enemies surrounding him, of enemies whose
presence even his trained powers of perception had been unable to
detect. The intensity of the note of danger which he had
recognized now was fully explained. He grew icily cool, master of
his every faculty. "We shall see!" he muttered, grimly.

Feeling his way into the lane, he set out running for the
highroad, his footsteps ringing out sharply upon the dusty way.
The highroad gained, he turned, not to the left, but to the
right, ran up the bank and threw himself flatly down upon it,
lying close to the hedge and watching the entrance to the lane.
Nothing appeared; nothing stirred. He knew the silence to be
illusive; he blamed himself for having ventured upon such a quest
without acquainting himself with the geography of the

Great issues often rest upon a needle point. He had no idea of
the direction or extent of the park land adjoining the highroad.
Nevertheless, further inaction being out of the question,
creeping along the grassy bank, he began to retreat from the
entrance to the lane. Some ten yards he had progressed in this
fashion when his hidden watchers made their first mistake.

A faint sound, so faint that only a man in deadly peril could
have detected it, brought him up sharply. He crouched back
against the hedge, looking behind him. For a long time he failed
to observe anything. Then, against the comparatively high tone of
the dusty road, he saw a silhouette--the head and shoulders of
someone who peered out cautiously.

Still as the trees above him he crouched, watching, and
presently, bent forward, questing to right and left, questing in
a horribly suggestive animal fashion, the entire figure of the
man appeared in the roadway.

As Paul Harley had prayed would be the case, his pursuers
evidently believed that he had turned in the direction of Lower
Claybury. A vague, phantom figure, Harley saw the man wave his
arm, whereupon a second man joined him--a third--and, finally, a

Harley clenched his teeth grimly, and as the ominous quartet
began to move toward the left, he resumed his slow retreat to the
right--going ever farther away, of necessity, from the only
centre with which he was acquainted and from which he could hope
to summon assistance. Finally he reached a milestone resting
almost against the railings of the Manor Park.

Drawing a deep breath, he sprang upon the milestone, succeeded in
grasping the top of the high iron railings, and hauled himself up

Praying that the turf might be soft, he jumped. Fit though he
was, and hardened by physical exercise, the impact almost stunned
him. He came down like an acrobat--left foot, right foot, and
then upon his hands, but nevertheless he lay there for a moment
breathless and temporarily numbed by the shock.

In less than a minute he was on his feet again and looking
alertly about him. Striking into the park land, turning to the
left, and paralleling the highroad, he presently came out upon
the roadway, along which under shelter of a straggling hedge, he
began to double back. In sight of the road dipping down to Lower
Claybury he crossed, forcing his way through a second hedge
thickly sown with thorns.

Badly torn, but careless of such minor injuries, he plunged
heavily through a turnip field, and, bearing always to the left,
came out finally upon the road leading to the st ation, and only
some fifty yards from the bottom of the declivity.

A moment he paused, questioning the silence. He was unwilling to
believe that he had outwitted his pursuers. His nerves were
strung to highest tension, and his strange gift of semi -
prescience told him that danger was at least as imminent as ever,
even though he could neither see nor hear his enemies. Therefore,
pistol in hand again, he descended to the foot of the hill.
He remembered having noticed, when he had applied to the porter
for information respecting the residence of Ormuz Khan, that upon
a window adjoining the entrance had appeared the words "Station
Master." The station master's office, therefore, was upon the
distant side of the line.

Now came the hardest blow of all. The station was closed for the
night. Nor was there any light in the signal box. Evidently no
other train was due upon that branch line until some time in the
early morning. The level crossing gate was open, but before
breaking cover he paused a while to consider what he should do.
Lower Claybury was one of those stations which have no intimate
connection with any township. The nearest house, so far as Harley
could recall, was fully twenty yards from the spot at which he
stood. Furthermore, the urgency of the case had fired the soul of
the professional investigator.

He made up his mind, and, darting out into the road, he ran
across the line, turned sharply, and did not pause until he stood
before the station master's window. Then his quick wits were put
to their ultimate test.

Right, left, it seemed from all about him, came swiftly pattering
footsteps! Instantly he divined the truth. Losing his tracks upon
the highroad above, a section of his pursuers had surrounded the
station, believing that he would head for it in retreat.

Paul Harley whipped off his coat in a flash, and using it as a
ram, smashed the window. He reached up, found the catch, and
opened the sash. In ten seconds he was in the room, and a great
clatter told him that he had overturned some piece of furniture.

Disentangling his coat, he sought and found the electric torch.
He pressed the button. No light came. It was broken! He drew a
hissing breath, and began to grope about the little room. At last
his hand touched the telephone, and, taking it up:

"Hello!" he said. "Hello!"

"Yes," came the voice of the operator--"what number?"

"City 8951. Police business! Urgent!"

One, two, three seconds elapsed, four, five, six.

"Hello!" came the voice of Innes.

"That you, Innes?" said Harley. And, interrupting the other's
reply: "I am by no means safe, Innes! I am in one of the tightest
corners of my life. Listen: Get Wessex! If he's off duty, get
Burton. Tell him to bring--"

Someone leaped in at the broken window behind the speaker.
Resting the telephone upon the table, where he had found it,
Harley reached into his hip pocket and snapped out his automatic.

Dimly he could hear Innes speaking. He half-turned, raised the
pistol, and knew a sudden intense pain at the back of his skull.
A thousand lights seemed suddenly to split the darkness. He felt
himself sinking into an apparently bottomless pit.


"Any news, Wessex?" asked Innes, eagerly, starting up from his
chair as the inspector entered the office.

Wessex shook his head, and sitting down took out and lighted a

"News of a sort," he replied, slowly, "but nothing of any value,
I am afraid. My assistant, Stokes, has distinguished himself."

"In what way?" asked Innes, dully, dropping back into his chair.

These were trying days for the indefatigable secretary. Believing
that some clue of importance might come to light at any hour of
the day or night he remained at the chambers in Chancery Lane,
sleeping nightly in the spare room.

"Well," continued the inspector, "I had detailed him to watch
Nicol Brinn, but my explicit instructions were that Nicol Brinn
was not to be molested in any way."

"What happened?"

"To-night Nicol Brinn had a visitor--possibly a valuable witness.
Stokes, like an idiot, allowed her to slip through his fingers
and tried to arrest Brinn!"

"What? Arrest him!" cried Innes.

"Precisely. But I rather fancy," added the inspector, grimly,
"that Mr. Stokes will think twice before taking leaps like that
in the dark again."

"You say he tried to arrest him. What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that Nicol Brinn, leaving Stokes locked in his chambers,
went out and has completely disappeared!"

"But the woman?"

"Ah, the woman! There's the rub. If he had lain low and followed
the woman, all might have been well. But who she was, where she
came from, and where she has gone, we have no idea."
"Nicol Brinn must have been desperate to adopt such measures?"

Detective Inspector Wessex nodded.

"I quite agree with you."

"He evidently had an appointment of such urgency that he could
permit nothing to stand in his way."

"He is a very clever man, Mr. Innes. He removed the telephone
from the room in which he had locked Stokes, so that my
blundering assistant was detained for nearly fifteen
minutes--detained, in fact, until his cries from the window
attracted the attention of a passing constable!"

"Nicol Brinn's man did not release him?"

"No, he said he had no key."

"What happened?"

"Stokes wanted to detain the servant, whose name is Hoskins, but
I simply wouldn't hear of it. I am a poor man, but I would
cheerfully give fifty pounds to know where Nicol Brinn is at this

Innes stood up restlessly and began to drum his fingers upon the
table edge. Presently he looked up, and:

"There's a shadow of hope," he said. "Rector--you know
Rector?--had been detailed by the chief to cover the activities
of Nicol Brinn. He has not reported to me so far to-night."

"You mean that he may be following him?" cried Wessex.

"It is quite possible--following either Nicol Brinn or the

"My God, I hope you're right!--even though it makes the Criminal
Investigation Department look a bit silly."

"Then," continued Innes, "there is something else which you
should know. I heard to-day from a garage, with which Mr. Harley
does business, that he hired a racing car last night. He has
often used it before. It met him half-way along Pall Mall at
seven o'clock, and he drove away in it in the direction of
Trafalgar Square."


"Yes, unfortunately."

"Toward Trafalgar Square," murmured Wessex.
"Ah," said Innes, shaking his head, "that clue is of no
importance. Under the circumstances the chief would be much more
likely to head away from his objective than toward it."

"Quite," murmured Wessex. "I agree with you. But what's this?"

The telephone bell was ringing, and as Innes eagerly took up the

"Yes, yes, Mr. Innes speaking," he said, quickly. "Is that you,

The voice of Rector, one of Paul Harley's assistants, answered
him over the wire:

"I am speaking from Victoria Station, Mr. Innes."

"Yes!" said Innes. "Go ahead."

"A very odd-looking woman visited Mr. Nicol Brinn's chambers this
evening. She was beautifully dressed, but wore the collar of her
fur coat turned up about her face, so that it was difficult to
see her. But somehow I think she was an Oriental."

"An Oriental!" exclaimed Innes.

"I waited for her to come out," Rector continued. "She had
arrived in a cab, which was waiting, and I learned from the man
that he had picked her up at Victoria Station."


"She came out some time later in rather a hurry. In fact, I think
there was no doubt that she was frightened. By this time I had
another cab waiting."

"And where did she go?" asked Innes.

"Back to Victoria Station."

"Yes! Go on!"

"Unfortunately, Mr. Innes, my story does not go much further. I
wasted very little time, you may be sure. But although no train
had left from the South Eastern station, which she had entered,
there was no sign of her anywhere. So that I can only suppose she
ran through to the Brighton side, or possibly out to a car, which
may have been waiting for her somewhere."

"Is that all?" asked Innes, gloomily.

"That's all, Mr. Innes. But I thought I would report it."

"Quite right, Rector; you could do no more. Did you see anything
of Detective Sergeant Stokes before you left Piccadilly?"

"I did," replied the other. "He also was intensely interested in
Nicol Brinn's visitor. And about five minutes before she came out
he went upstairs."

"Oh, I see. She came out almost immediately after Stokes had gone


"Very well, Rector. Return to Piccadilly, and report to me as
soon as possible." Innes hung up the receiver.

"Did you follow, Wessex?" he said. "Stokes was on the right
track, but made a bad blunder. You see, his appearance led t o the
woman's retreat."

"He explained that to me," returned the inspector, gloomily. "She
got out by another door as he came in. Oh! a pretty mess he has
made of it. If he and Rector had been cooperating, they could
have covered her movements perfectly."

"There is no use crying over spilt milk," returned Innes. He
glanced significantly in the inspector's direction. "Miss
Abingdon has rung up practically every hour all day," he said.

Wessex nodded his head.

"I'm a married man myself," he replied, "and happily married,
too. But if you had seen the look in her eyes when I told her
that Mr. Harley had disappeared, I believe you would have envied

"Yes," murmured Innes. "They haven't known each other long, but I
should say from what little I have seen of them that she cares
too much for her peace of mind." He stared hard at the inspector.
"I think it will break her heart if anything has happened to the
chief. The sound of her voice over the telephone brings a lump
into my throat, Wessex. She rang up an hour ago. She will ring up

"Yet I never thought he was a marrying man," muttered the

"Neither did I," returned Innes, smiling sadly. "But even he can
be forgiven for changing his mind in the case of Phil A bingdon."

"Ah," said the inspector. "I am not sorry to know that he is
human like the rest of us." His expression grew retrospective,
and: "I can't make out how the garage you were speaking about
didn't report that matter before," he added.

"Well, you see," explained Innes, "they were used to the chief
making long journeys."

"Long journeys," muttered the inspector. "Did he make a long
journey? I wonder--I wonder."


As Nicol Brinn strolled out from the door below his chambers in
Piccadilly, a hoarse voice made itself audible above his head.

"Police!" he heard over the roar of the traffic. "Help! Police!"

Detective Sergeant Stokes had come out upon the balcony. But up
to the time that Nicol Brinn turned and proceeded in leisurely
fashion in the direction of the Cavalry Club, the sergeant had
not succeeded in attracting any attention.

Nicol Brinn did not hurry. Having his hands thrust in the pockets
of his light overcoat, he sauntered along Piccadilly as an idle
man might do. He knew that he had ample time to keep his
appointment, and recognizing the vital urgency of the situation,
he was grateful for some little leisure to reflect.

One who had obtained a glimpse of his face in the light of the
shop windows which he passed must have failed to discern any
evidence of anxiety. Yet Nicol Brinn knew that death was
beckoning to him. He knew that his keen wit was the only weapon
which could avail him to-night; and he knew that he must show
himself a master of defence.

A lonely man, of few but enduring friendships, he had admitted
but one love to his life, except the love of his mother. This one
love for seven years he had sought to kill. But anything forceful
enough to penetrate to the stronghold of Nicol Brinn's soul was
indestructible, even by Nicol Brinn himself.

So, now, at the end of a mighty struggle, he had philosophically
accepted this hopeless passion which Fate had thrust upon him.
Yet he whose world was a chaos outwardly remained unmoved.

Perhaps even that evil presence whose name was Fire-Tongue might
have paused, might have hesitated, might even have changed his
plans, which, in a certain part of the world, were counted
immutable, had he known the manner of man whom he had summoned to
him that night.

Just outside the Cavalry Club a limousine was waiting, driven by
a chauffeur who looked like some kind of Oriental. Nicol Brinn
walked up to the man, and bending forward:

"Fire-Tongue," he said, in a low voice.
The chauffeur immediately descended and opened the door of the
car. The interior was unlighted, but Nicol Brinn cast a
comprehensive glance around ere entering. As he settled himself
upon the cushions, the door was closed again, and he found
himself in absolute darkness.

"Ah," he muttered. "Might have foreseen it." All the windows were
curtained, or rather, as a rough investigation revealed, were
closed with aluminium shutters which were immovable.

A moment later, as the car moved off, a lamp became lighted above
him. Then he saw that several current periodicals were placed
invitingly in the rack, as well as a box of very choice Egyptian

"H'm," he murmured.

He made a close investigation upon every side, but he knew enough
of the organization with which he was dealing to be prepared for

He failed. There was no cranny through which he could look out.
Palpably, it would be impossible to learn where he was being
taken. The journey might be a direct one, or might be a detour.
He wished that he could have foreseen this device. Above all, he
wished that Detective Sergeant Stokes had been a more clever man.

It would have been good to know that he was followed. His only
hope was that someone detailed by Paul Harley might be in

Lighting a fresh cigar, Nicol Brinn drew a copy of the Sketch
from the rack, and studied the photographs of more or less pretty
actresses with apparent contentment. He had finished the Sketch,
and was perusing the Bystander, when, the car having climbed a
steep hill and swerved sharply to the right, he heard the
rustling of leaves, and divined that they were proceeding along a

He replaced the paper in the rack, and took out his watch.
Consulting it, he returned it to his pocket as the car stopped
and the light went out.

The door, which, with its fellow, Nicol Brinn had discovered to
be locked, was opened by the Oriental chauffeur, and Brinn
descended upon the steps of a shadowed porch. The house door was
open, and although there was no light within:

"Come this way," said a voice, speaking out of the darkness.

Nicol Brinn entered a hallway the atmosphere of which seemed to
be very hot.

"Allow me to take your hat and coat," continued the voice.
He was relieved of these, guided along a dark passage; and
presently, an inner door being opened, he found himself in a
small, barely furnished room where one shaded lamp burned upon a
large writing table.

His conductor, who did not enter, closed the door quietly, and
Nicol Brinn found himself looking into the smiling face of a
Hindu gentleman who sat at the table.

The room was decorated with queer-looking Indian carvings,
pictures upon silk, and other products of Eastern craftsmanship.
The table and the several chairs were Oriental in character, but
the articles upon the table were very European and businesslike
in appearance. Furthermore, the Hindu gentleman, who wore correct
evening dress, might have been the representative of an Eastern
banking house, as indeed he happened to be, amongst other things.

"Good evening," he said, speaking perfect English "won't you sit

He pointed with a pen which he was holding in the direction of a
heavily carved chair which stood near the table. Nicol Brinn sat
down, regarding the speaker with lack-lustre eyes.

"A query has arisen respecting your fraternal rights," continued
the Hindu. "Am I to understand that you claim to belong to the
Seventh Kama?"

"Certainly," replied Brinn in a toneless voice.

The Hindu drew his cuff back from a slender yellow wrist,
revealing a curious mark which appeared to be branded upon the
flesh. It was in the form of a torch or flambeau surmounted by a
tongue of flame. He raised his black brows, smilin g

Nicol Brinn stood up, removing his tight dinner jacket. Then,
rolling back his sleeve from a lean, sinuous forearm, he extended
the powerful member, having his fist tightly clenched.

Upon the inside of his arm, just above the elbow, an identical
mark had been branded!

The Hindu stood up and saluted Nicol Brinn in a peculiar manner.
That is to say, he touched the second finger of his right hand
with the tip of his tongue, and then laid the finger upon his
forehead, at the same time bowing deeply.

Nicol Brinn repeated the salutation, and quietly put his coat on.

"We greet you," said the Hindu. "I am Rama Dass of the Bengal
Lodge. Have you Hindustani?"

"Where were you initiated?"

"At Moon Ali Lane."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Hindu. "I see it all. In Bombay?"

"In Bombay."

"When, and by whom, may I ask?"

"By Ruhmani, November 23, 1913."

"Strange," murmured Rama Dass. "Brother Ruhmani died in that
year; which accounts for our having lost touch with you. What is
your grade?"

"The fifth."

"You have not proceeded far, brother. How do you come to be
unacquainted with our presence in England?"

"I cannot say."

"What work has been allotted to you?"




"More and more strange," murmured the Hindu, watching Nicol Brinn
through the gold-rimmed spectacles which he wore. "I have only
known one other case. Such cases are dangerous, brother."

"No blame attaches to me," replied Nicol Brinn.

"I have not said so," returned Rama Dass. "But in the Seventh
Kama all brothers must work. A thousand lives are as nothing so
the Fire lives. We had thought our information perfect, but only
by accident did we learn of your existence."

"Indeed," murmured Nicol Brinn, coldly.

Not even this smiling Hindu gentleman, whose smile concealed so
much, could read any meaning in those lack-lustre eyes, nor
detect any emotion in that high, cool voice.

"A document was found, and in this it was recorded that you bore
upon your arm the sign of the Seventh Kama."

"'Tis Fire that moves the grains of dust," murmured Nicol Brinn,
tonelessly, "which one day make a mountain for the gods."

Rama Dass stood up at once and repeated his strange gesture of
salutation, which Nicol Brinn returned ceremoniously; and resumed
his seat at the table.

"You are advanced beyond your grade, brother," he said. "You are
worthy the next step. Do you wish to take it?"

"Every little drop swells the ocean," returned Nicol Brinn.

"You speak well," the Hindu said. "We have here your complete
record. It shall not be consulted. To do so were unnecessary. We
are satisfied. We regret only that one so happily circumstanced
to promote the coming of the Fire should have been lost sight of.
Last night there were three promotions and several rejections.
You were expected."

"But I was not summoned."

"No," murmured Rama Dass. "We had learned of you as I have said.
However, great honour results. You will be received alone. Do you
desire to advance?"

"No. Give me time."

Rama Dass again performed the strange salutation, and again Nicol
Brinn returned it.

"Wisdom is a potent wine," said the latter, gravely.

"We respect your decision."

The Hindu rang a little silver bell upon his table, and the
double doors which occupied one end of the small room opened
silently, revealing a large shadowy apartment beyond.

Rama Dass stood up, crossed the room, and standing just outside
the open doors, beckoned to Nicol Brinn to advance.

"There is no fear," he said, in a queer, chanting tone.

"There is no fear," repeated Nicol Brinn.

"There is no love."

"There is no love."

"There is no death."

"There is no death."

"Fire alone is eternal."
"Fire alone is eternal."

As he pronounced those words Nicol Brinn crossed the threshold of
the dark room, and the double doors closed silently behind him.


Absolute darkness surrounded Nicol Brinn. Darkness, unpleasant
heat, and a stifling odour of hyacinths. He had been well
coached, and thus far his memory had served him admirably. But
now he knew not what to expect. Therefore inwardly on fire but
outwardly composed, muscles taut and nerves strung highly, he
waited for the next development.

It took the form, first, of the tinkling of a silver   bell, and
then of the coming of a dim light at the end of what   was
evidently a long apartment. The light grew brighter,   assuming the
form of a bluish flame burning in a little flambeau.   Nicol Brinn
watched it fascinatedly.

Absolutely no sound was discernible, until a voice began to
speak, a musical voice of curiously arresting quality.

"You are welcome," said the voice. "You are of the Bombay Lodge,
although a citizen of the United States. Because of some strange
error, no work has been allotted to you hitherto. This shall be

Of the weird impressiveness of the scene there could be no doubt.
It even touched some unfamiliar chord in the soul of Nicol Brinn.
The effect of such an interview upon an imaginative, highly
strung temperament, could be well imagined. It was perhaps
theatrical, but that by such means great ends had already been
achieved he knew to his cost.

The introduction of Maskelyne illusions into an English country
house must ordinarily have touched his sense of humour, but
knowing something of the invisible presence in which he stood in
that darkened chamber, there was no laughter in the heart of
Nicol Brinn, but rather an unfamiliar coldness, the n earest
approach to fear of which this steel-nerved man was capable.

"Temporarily," the sweet voice continued, "you will be affiliated
with the London Lodge, to whom you will look for instructions.
These will reach you almost immediately. There is gre at work to
be done in England. It has been decided, however, that you shall
be transferred as quickly as possible in our New York Lodge. You
will await orders. Only Fire is eternal."

Again the voice ceased. But, Nicol Brinn remained silent:

"Your reply is awaited."
"Fire is life," replied Nicol Brinn.

The blue tongue of flame subsided, lower and lower, and finally
disappeared, so that the apartment became enwrapped in absolute
darkness. A faint rustling sound suggested that a heavy curtain
had been lowered, and almost immediately the doors behind Nicol
Brinn were opened again by Rama Dass.

"We congratulate you, brother," he said, extending his hand. "Yet
the ordeal was no light one, for all the force of the Fire was
focussed upon you."

Nicol Brinn reentered the room where the shaded lamp stood upon
the writing table. In the past he had moved unscathed through
peril unknown to the ordinary man. He was well acquainted with
the resources of the organization whose agents, unseen,
surrounded him in that remote country house, but that their
pretensions were extravagant his present immunity would seem to

If the speaker with the strangely arresting voice were indeed
that Fire-Tongue whose mere name was synonymous with dread in
certain parts of the East, then Fire-Tongue was an impostor. He
who claimed to read the thoughts of all men had signally failed
in the present instance, unless Nicol Brinn stared dully into the
smiling face of Rama Dass. Not yet must he congratulate himself.
Perhaps the Hindu's smile concealed as much as the mask worn by
Nicol Brinn.

"We congratulate you," said Rama Dass. "You are a worthy

He performed the secret salutation, which Nicol Brinn
automatically acknowledged. Then, without another word, Rama Dass
led the way to the door.

Out into the dark hallway Nicol Brinn stepped, his muscles taut,
his brain alert for instant action. But no one offered to molest
him. He was assisted into his coat, and his hat was placed in his
hands. Then, the front door being opened, he saw the headlights
of the waiting car shining on a pillar of the porch.

A minute later he was seated again in the shuttered limousine,
and as it moved off, and the lights leapt up above him, he lay
back upon the cushions and uttered a long sigh.

Already he divined that, following a night's sleep, these scenes
would seem like the episodes of a dream. Taking off his hat, he
raised his hand to his forehead, and discovered it to be slightly

"No wonder," he muttered.
Drawing out a silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his
dinner jacket, he wiped his face and forehead deliberately. Then,
selecting a long black cigar from a case which bore the monogram
of the late Czar of Russia, he lighted it, dropped the match in
the tray, and lolling back in a corner, closed his eyes wearily.

Thus, almost unmoving, he remained throughout the drive. His only
actions were, first, to assure himself that both doors were
locked again, and then at intervals tidily to place a little cone
of ash in the tray provided for the purpose. Finally, the car
drew up and a door was unlocked by the chauffeur.

Nicol Brinn, placing his hat upon his head, stepped out before
the porch of the Cavalry Club.

The chauffeur closed the door, and returned again to the wheel.
Immediately the car moved away. At the illuminated number Nicol
Brinn scarcely troubled to glance. Common sense told him that it
was not that under which the car was registered. His interest, on
the contrary, was entirely focussed upon a beautiful Rolls Royce,
which was evidently awaiting some visitor or member of the club.
Glancing shrewdly at the chauffeur, a smart, military -looking
fellow, Nicol Brinn drew a card from his waistcoat pocket, and
resting it upon a wing in the light of one of the lamps, wrote
something rapidly upon it in pencil.

Returning the pencil to his pocket:

"Whose car, my man?" he inquired of the chauffeur.

"Colonel Lord Wolverham's, sir."

"Good," said Nicol Brinn, and put the card and a ten-shilling
note into the man's hand. "Go right into the club and personally
give Colonel Lord Wolverham this card. Do you understand?"

The man understood. Used to discipline, he recognized the note of
command in the speaker's voice.

"Certainly, sir," he returned, without hesitation; and stepping
down upon the pavement he walked into the club.

Less than two minutes afterward a highly infuriated military
gentleman--who, as it chanced, had never even heard of the
distinguished American traveller--came running out hatless into
Piccadilly, holding a crumpled visiting card in his hand. The
card, which his chauffeur had given him in the midst of a
thrilling game, read as follows:


And written in pencil beneath the name appeared the following:
Borrowed your Rolls. Urgent. Will explain tomorrow. Apologize.


On the following morning the card of His Excellenc y Ormuz Khan
was brought to Phil Abingdon in the charming little room which
Mrs. McMurdoch had allotted to her for a private sanctum during
the period of her stay under this hospitable roof.

"Oh," she exclaimed, and looked at the maid in a startled way. "I
suppose I must see him. Will you ask him to come in, please?"

A few moments later Ormuz Khan entered. He wore faultless morning
dress, too faultless; so devoid of any flaw or crease as to have
lost its masculine character. In his buttonhole wa s a hyacinth,
and in one slender ivory hand he carried a huge bunch of pink
roses, which, bowing deeply, he presented to the embarrassed

"Dare I venture," he said in his musical voice, bending deeply
over her extended hand, "to ask you to accept these flowers? It
would honour me. Pray do not refuse."

"Your excellency is very kind," she replied, painfully conscious
of acute nervousness. "It is more than good of you."

"It is good of you to grant me so much pleasure," he returned,
sinking gracefully upon a settee, as Phil Abingdon resumed her
seat. "Condolences are meaningless. Why should I offer them to
one of your acute perceptions? But you know--" the long, magnetic
eyes regarded her fixedly--"you know what is in my heart."

Phil Abingdon bit her lip, merely nodding in reply.

"Let us then try to forget, if only for a while," said Ormuz
Khan. "I could show you so easily, if you would consent to allow
me, that those we love never leave us."

The spell of his haunting voice was beginning to have its effect.
Phil Abingdon found herself fighting against something which at
once repelled and attracted her. She had experienced this unusual
attraction before, and this was not the first time that she had
combated it. But whereas formerly she had more or less resigned
herself to the strange magic which lay in the voice and in the
eyes of Ormuz Khan, this morning there was something within her
which rebelled fiercely against the Oriental seductiveness of his

She recognized that a hot flush had covered her cheeks. For the
image of Paul Harley, bronzed, gray-eyed, and reproachful, had
appeared before her mind's eye, and she knew why her resentment
of the Persian's charm of manner had suddenly grown so intense.
Yet she was not wholly immune from it, for:

"Does Your Excellency really mean that?" she whispered.

A smile appeared upon his face, an alluring smile, but rather
that of a beautiful woman than of a man.

"As you of the West," he said, "have advanced step by step, ever
upward in the mechanical sciences, we of the East have advanced
also step by step in other and greater sciences."

"Certainly," she admitted, "you have spoken of such things

"I speak of things which I know. From that hour when you entered
upon your first Kama, back in the dawn of time, until now, those
within the ever-moving cycle which bears you on through the ages
have been beside you, at times unseen by the world, at times
unseen by you, veiled by the mist which men call death, but which
is no more than a curtain behind which we sometimes step for a
while. In the East we have learned to raise that curtain; in the
West are triflers who make like claims, but whose knowledge of
the secret of the veil is--" And he snapped his fingers

The strange personality of the man was having its effect. Phil
Abingdon's eyes were widely open, and she was hanging upon his
words. Underneath the soft effeminate exterior lay a masterful
spirit--a spirit which had known few obstacles. The world of
womanhood could have produced no more difficult subject than Phil
Abingdon. Yet she realized, and became conscious of a sense of
helplessness, that under certain conditions she would be as a
child in the hands of this Persian mystic, whose weird eyes
appeared to be watching not her body, nor even her mind, but her
soul, whose voice touched unfamiliar chords within her--chords
which had never responded to any other human voice.

It was thrilling, vaguely pleasurable, but deep terror underlay

"Your Excellency almost frightens me," she whispered. "Yet I do
not doubt that you speak of what you know."

"It is so," he returned, gravely. "At any hour, day or night, if
you care to make the request, I shall be happy to prove my words.
But," he lowered his dark lashes and then raised them again, "the
real object of my visit is concerned with more material things."

"Indeed," said Phil Abingdon, and whether because of the words of
Ormuz Khan, or because of some bond of telepathy which he had
established between them, she immediately found herself to be
thinking of Paul Harley.
"I bring you a message," he continued, "from a friend."

With eyes widely open, Phil Abingdon watched him.

"From," she began--but her lips would not frame the name.

"From Mr. Paul Harley," he said, inclining his head gravely.

"Oh! tell me, tell me!"

"I am here to tell you, Miss Abingdon. Mr. Harley feels that his
absence may have distressed you."

"Yes, yes," she said, eagerly.

"But in pursuit of a certain matter which is known to you, he has
found it necessary in the interests of his safety to remain out
of London for a while."

"Oh," Phil Abingdon heaved a great sigh. "Oh, Your Excellency,
how glad I am to hear that he is safe!"

The long, dark eyes regarded her intently, unemotionally, noting
that the flush had faded from her face, leaving it very pale, and
noting also the expression of gladness in her eyes, the quivering
of her sweet lips.

"He is my guest," continued Ormuz Khan, "my honoured guest."

"He is with you?" exclaimed Phil, almost incredulously.

"With me, at my home in Surrey. In me he found a natural ally,
since my concern was as great as his own. I do not conceal from
you, Miss Abingdon, that he is danger."

"In danger?" she whispered.

"It is true, but beneath my roof he is safe. There is a matter of
vital urgency, however, in which you can assist him."

"I?" she exclaimed.

"No one but you." Ormuz Khan raised his slender hand gracefully.
"I beg you, do not misunderstand me. In the first place, would
Mr. Harley have asked you to visit him at my home, if he had not
been well assured that you could do so with propriety? In the
second place, should I, who respect you more deepl y than any
woman in the world, consent to your coming unchaperoned? Miss
Abingdon, you know me better. I beg of you in Mr. Harley's name
and in my own, prevail upon Mrs. McMurdoch to accept the
invitation which I bring to lunch with me at Hillside, my Surrey
He spoke with the deep respect of a courtier addressing his
queen. His low musical voice held a note that was almost a note
of adoration. Phil Abingdon withdrew her gaze from the handsome
ivory face, and strove for mental composure before replying.

Subtly, insidiously, the man had cast his spell upon her. Of this
she was well aware. In other words, her thoughts were not
entirely her own, but in a measure were promptings from that
powerful will.

Indeed, her heart was beating wildly at the mere thought that she
was to see Paul Harley again that very day. She had counted the
hours since their last meeting, and knew exactly how many had
elapsed. Because each one had seemed like twelve, she had ceased
to rebel against this sweet weakness, which, for the first time
in her life, had robbed her of some of her individuality, and had
taught her that she was a woman to whom mastery by man is
exquisite slavery. Suddenly she spoke.

"Of course I will come, Your Excellency," she said. "I will see
Mrs. McMurdoch at once, but I know she will not refuse."

"Naturally she will not refuse, Miss Abingdon," he returned in a
grave voice. "The happiness of so many people is involved."

"It is so good of you," she said, standing up. "I sha ll never
forget your kindness."

He rose, bowing deeply, from a European standpoint too deeply.

"Kindness is a spiritual investment," he said, "which returns us
interest tenfold. If I can be sure of Mrs. McMurdoch's
acceptance, I will request permission to take my leave now, for I
have an urgent business appointment to keep, after which I will
call for you. Can you be ready by noon?"

"Yes, we shall be ready."

Phil Abingdon held out her hand in a curiously hesitant manner.
The image of Paul Harley had become more real, more insistent.
Her mind was in a strangely chaotic state, so that when the hand
of Ormuz Khan touched her own, she repressed a start and laughed
in an embarrassed way.

She knew that her heart was singing, but under the song lay
something cold, and when Ormuz Khan had bowed himself from the
room, she found herself thinking, not of the newly departed
visitor, nor even of Paul Harley, but of her dead father. In
spite of the sunshine which flooded the room, her flesh turn ed
cold and she wondered if the uncanny Persian possessed some
strange power.

Clearly as though he had stood beside her, she seemed to hear the
beloved voice of her father. It was imagination, of course, she
knew this; but it was uncannily real.

She thought that he was calling her, urgently, beseechingly:

"Phil.... Phil...."


Paul Harley raised his aching head and looked wearily about him.
At first, as might be expected, he thought that he was dreaming.
He lay upon a low divan and could only suppose that he had been
transported to India.

Slowly, painfully, memory reasserted itself and he realized that
he had been rendered unconscious by the blow of a sandbag or some
similar weapon while telephoning from the station master's office
at Lower Claybury. How long a time had elapsed since that moment
he was unable to judge, for his watch had been removed from his
pocket. He stared about him with a sort of fearful interest. He
lay in a small barely furnished room having white distempered
walls, wholly undecorated. Its few appointments were Oriental,
and the only window which it boasted was set so high as to be
well out of reach. Moreover, it was iron-barred, and at the
moment admitted no light, whether because it did not communicate
with the outer world, or because night was fallen, he was unable
to tell.

There were two doors in the room, one of very massive
construction, and the other a smaller one. The place was dimly
lighted by a brass lantern which hung from the ceiling. Harley
stood up, staggered slightly, and then sat down again.

"My God," he groaned and raised his hand to his head.

For a few moments he remained seated, victim of a deadly nausea.
Then, clenching his jaws grimly, again he stood up, and this time
succeeded in reaching the heavy door.

As he had supposed, it was firmly locked, and a glance was
sufficient to show him that his unaided effort could never force
it. He turned his attention to the smaller door, which opened at
his touch, revealing a sleeping apartment not unlike a monk's
cell, adjoining which was a tiny bathroom. Neither rooms boasted
windows, both being lighted by brass lanterns.

Harley examined them and their appointments with the utmost care,
and then returned again to the outer room, one feature of which,
and quite the most remarkable, he had reserved for special

This was a massive screen of gilded iron scroll work, which
occupied nearly the whole of one end of the room. Beyond the
screen hung a violet-coloured curtain of Oriental fabric; but so
closely woven was the metal design that although he could touch
this curtain with his finger at certain points, it proved
impossible for him to move it aside in any way.

He noted that its lower fringe did not quite touch the door. By
stooping down, he could see a few feet into some room beyond. It
was in darkness, however, and beyond the fact that it was
carpeted with a rich Persian rug, he learned but little from his
scrutiny. The gilded screen was solid and immovable.

Nodding his head grimly, Harley felt in his pockets   for pipe and
pouch, wondering if these, too, had been taken from   him. They had
not, however, and the first nausea of his awakening   having
passed, he filled and lighted his briar and dropped   down upon the
divan to consider his position.

That it was fairly desperate was a fact he was unable to hide
from himself, but at least he was still alive, which was a matter
at once for congratulation and surprise.

He had noticed before, in raising his hand to his head, that his
forehead felt cold and wet, and now, considering the matter
closely, he came to the conclusion that an attempt had been made
to aid his recovery, by some person or persons who must have
retired at the moment that he had shown signs of returning

His salvation, then, was not accidental but deliberate. He
wondered what awaited him and why his life had been spared.
That he had walked blindly into a trap prepared for him by that
mysterious personality known as Fire-Tongue, he no longer could
doubt. Intense anxiety and an egotistical faith in his own acumen
had led him to underestimate the cleverness of his enemies, a
vice from which ordinarily he was free.

From what hour they had taken a leading interest in his
movements, he would probably never know, but that they had
detected Paul Harley beneath the vendor of "Old Moore's Almanac"
was certain enough. What a fool he had been!

He reproached himself bitterly. Ordinary common sense should have
told him that the Hindu secretary had given those instructions to
the chauffeur in the courtyard of the Savoy Hotel for his, Paul
Harley's, special benefit. It was palpable enough now. He
wondered how he had ever fallen into such a trap, and biting
savagely upon his pipe, he strove to imagine what ordeal lay
ahead of him.

So his thoughts ran, drifting from his personal danger, which he
knew to be great, to other matters, which he dreaded to consider,
because they meant far more to him than his own life. Upon these
bitter reflections a slight sound intruded, the first which had
disturbed the stillness about him since the moment of his

Someone had entered the room beyond the gilded screen, an d now a
faint light showed beneath the fringe of the curtain. Paul Harley
sat quite still, smoking and watching.

He had learned to face the inevitable with composure, and now,
apprehending the worst, he waited, puffing at his pipe. Presently
he detected the sound of someone crossing the room toward him, or
rather toward the screen. He lay back against the mattress which
formed the back of the divan, and watched the gap below the

Suddenly he perceived a pair of glossy black boots. Their wearer
was evidently standing quite near the screen, possibly listening.
Harley had an idea that some second person stood immediately
behind the first. Of this idea he presently had confirmation. He
was gripping the stem of his pipe very tightly and any one who
could have seen him sitting there must have perceived that
although his face wore an unusual pallor, he was composed and
entirely master of himself.

A voice uttered his name:

"Mr. Paul Harley."

He could not be sure, but he thought it was the voice of Ormuz
Khan's secretary. He drew his pipe from between his teeth, and:

"Yes, what do you want with me?" he asked.

"Your attention, Mr. Harley, for a few moments, if you feel
sufficiently recovered."

"Pray proceed," said Harley.

Of the presence of a second person beyond the screen he was now
assured, for he had detected the sound of whispered instructions;
and sinking lower and lower upon the divan, he peered
surreptitiously under the border of the curtain, believing it to
be more than probable that his movements were watched.

This led to a notable discovery. A pair of gray suede shoes
became visible a few inches behind the glossy black
boots--curiously small shoes with unusually high heels. The
identity of their wearer was beyond dispute to the man who had
measured that delicate foot.

Ormuz Khan stood behind the screen!

"You have been guilty of a series of unfortunate mistakes, Mr.
Harley," continued the speaker. "Notably, you have relied upon
the clumsy device of disguise. To the organization in which you
have chosen to interest yourself, this has provided some mild
amusement. Your pedlar of almanacs was a clever impersonation,
but fortunately your appearance at the Savoy had been
anticipated, and no one was deceived."

Paul Harley did not reply. He concluded, quite correctly, that
the organization had failed to detect himself in the person of
the nervous cobbler. He drew courage from this deduction.
Fire-Tongue was not omniscient.

"It is possible," continued the unseen speaker, in whom Harley
had now definitely recognized Ormuz Khan's secretary, "that you
recently overheard a resolution respecting yourself. Your death,
in fact, had been determined upon. Life and death being
synonymous, the philosopher contemplates either with equanimity."

"I am contemplating the latter with equanimity at the moment,"
said Harley, dryly.

"The brave man does so," the Hindu continued, smoothly. "The
world only seems to grow older; its youth is really eternal, but
as age succeeds age, new creeds must take the place of the old
ones which are burned out. Fire, Mr. Harley, sweeps everything
from its path irresistibly. You have dared to stand in the path
of a fiery dawn; therefore, like all specks of dust which clog
the wheels of progress, you must be brushed aside."

Harley nodded grimly, watching a ring of smoke floating slowly

"It is a little thing to those who know the truth," the speaker
resumed. "To the purblind laws of the West it may seem a great
thing. We seek in Rome to do as Rome does. We judge every man as
we find him. Therefore, recognizing that your total disappearance
might compromise our movements in the near future, we have
decided to offer you an alternative. This offer is based upon the
British character. Where the oath of some men is a thing of
smoke, the word of honour of an Englishman we are prepared to

"Many thanks," murmured Harley. "On behalf of Great Britain I
accept the compliment."

"We have such faith in the completeness of our plans, and in the
nearness of the hour of triumph, that if you will pledge yourself
to silence, in writing, you will not be molested in any way. You
occupy at the moment the apartment reserved for neophytes of a
certain order. But we do not ask you to become a neophyte.
Disciples must seek us, we do not seek disciples. We only ask for
your word that you will be silent."
"It is impossible," said Harley, tersely.

"Think well of the matter. It may not seem so impossible

"I decline definitely."

"You are sustaining yourself with false hopes, Mr. Harley. You
think you have clues which will enable you to destroy a system
rooted in the remote past. Also you forget that you have lost
your freedom."

Paul Harley offered no further answer to the speaker concealed
behind the violet curtain.

"Do not misunderstand us," the voice continued. "We bind you to
nothing but silence."

"I refuse," said Harley, sharply. "Dismiss the matter."

"In spite of your refusal, time for consideration will be given
to you."

Faintly Paul Harley detected the sounds made by Ormuz Khan and
his secretary in withdrawing. The light beneath the curtain

For perhaps a space of two hours, Paul Harley sat smoking and
contemplating the situation from every conceivable angle. It was
certainly desperate enough, and after a time he rose with a weary
sigh, and made a second and more detailed examination of the
several apartments.

It availed him nothing, but one point he definitely established.
Escape was impossible, failing outside assistance. A certain
coldness in the atmosphere, which was perceptible immediately
beneath the barred window, led him to believe th at this
communicated with the outer air.

He was disposed to think that his unconsciousness had lasted less
than an hour, and that it was still dark without. He was full of
distrust. He no longer believed his immediate death to have been
decided upon. For some reason it would seem that the group wished
him to live, at any rate, temporarily. But now a complete theory
touching the death of Sir Charles Abingdon had presented itself
to his mind. Knowing little, but suspecting much of the resources
of Fire-Tongue, he endeavoured to avoid contact with anything in
the place.

Night attire was provided in the sleeping chamber, but he did not
avail himself of this hospitality. Absolute silence reigned about
him. Yet so immutable are Nature's laws, that presently Paul
Harley sank back upon the mattresses, and fell asleep.
He awoke, acutely uncomfortable and ill-rested. He found a shaft
of light streaming into the room, and casting shadows of the iron
bars upon the opposite wall. The brass lantern s till burned above
him, and the silence remained complete as when he had fallen
asleep. He stood up yawning and stretching himself.

At least, it was good to be still alive. He was vaguely conscious
of the fact that he had been dreaming of Phil Abingdo n, and
suppressing a sigh, he clenched his teeth grimly and entered the
little bathroom. There proved to be a plentiful supply of hot and
cold water. At this he sniffed suspiciously, but at last:

"I'll risk it," he muttered.

He undressed and revelled in the joy of a hot bath, concluding
with a cold plunge. A razor and excellent toilet requisites were
set upon the dressing table, and whilst his imagination whispered
that the soap might be poisoned and the razor possess a septic
blade, he shaved, and having shaved, lighted his pipe and
redressed himself at leisure.

He had nearly completed his toilet when a slight sound in the
outer room arrested his attention. He turned sharply, stepping
through the doorway.

A low carved table, the only one which the apartment boasted,
displayed an excellent English breakfast laid upon a spotless

"Ah," he murmured, and by the sight was mentally translated to
that celebrated apartment of the palace at Versailles, where
Louis XIV and his notorious favourite once were accustomed to
dine, alone, and unsuitably dressed, the courses being served in
just this fashion.

Harley held his pipe in his hand, and contemplated the repast. It
was only logical to suppose it to be innocuous, and a keen
appetite hastened the issue. He sidetracked his suspicion, and
made an excellent breakfast. So the first day of his captivity

Growing used to the stillness about him, he presently began to
detect, as the hours wore on, distant familiar sounds.
Automobiles on the highroad, trains leaving and entering a tunnel
which he judged to be from two to three miles distant; even human
voices at long intervals.

The noises of an English countryside crept through the barred
windows. Beyond a doubt he was in the house known as Hillside.
Probably at night the lights of London could be seen from the
garden. He was within ordinary telephone call of Chancery Lane.
Yet he resumed his pipe and smiled philosophically. He had hoped
to see the table disappear beneath the floor. As evidence that he
was constantly watched, this had occurred during a brief visit
which he had made to the bedroom in quest of matches.

When he returned the table was in its former place, but the cover
had been removed. He carefully examined the floor beneath it, and
realized that there was no hope of depressing the trap from
above. Then, at an hour which he judged to be that of noon, the
same voice addressed him from beyond the gilded screen.

"Mr. Paul Harley?"

"Yes, what have you to say?"

"By this time, Mr. Harley, you must have recognized that
opposition is futile. At any moment we could visit death upon
you. Escape, on the other hand, is out of the question. We desire
you no harm. For diplomatic reasons, we should prefer you to
live. Our cause is a sacred one. Do not misjudge it by minor
incidents. A short statement and a copy of your English testament
shall be placed upon the table, if you wish."

"I do not wish," Paul Harley returned.

"Is that your last word, Mr. Harley? We warn you that the third
time of asking will be the last time."

"This is my last word."

"Your own life is not the only stake at issue."

"What do you mean?"

"You will learn what we mean, if you insist upon withholding your
consent until we next invite it."

"Nevertheless, you may regard it as withheld, definitely and

Silence fell, and Paul Harley knew himself to be once more alone.
Luncheon appeared upon the table whilst he was washing in the
bathroom. Remembering the change in the tone of the unseen
speaker's voice, he avoided touching anything.

From the divan, through half-closed eyes, he examined every inch
of the walls, seeking for the spy-hole through which he knew
himself to be watched. He detected it at last: a little grating,
like a ventilator, immediately above him where he sat. This
communicated with some room where a silent watcher was constantly
on duty!

Paul Harley gave no sign that he had made this discovery. But
already his keen wits were at work upon a plan. He watched the
bar of light fading, fading, until, judging it to be dinner time,
he retired discreetly.
When he returned, he found dinner spread upon the table.

He wondered for what ordeal the neophyte was prepared in thi s
singular apartment. He wondered how such neophytes were chosen,
and to what tests they were submitted before being accepted as
members of the bloodthirsty order. He could not even surmise.

Evidently no neophyte had been accepted on the previous night,
unless there were other like chambers in the house. The occupants
of the shuttered cars must therefore have been more advanced
members. He spent the night in the little cell-like bedchamber,
and his second day of captivity began as the first had be gun.

For his dinner he had eaten nothing but bread and fruit. For his
breakfast he ate an egg and drank water from the tap in the
bathroom. His plan was now nearing completion. Only one point
remained doubtful.

At noon the voice again addressed him from behind the gilded

"Mr. Paul Harley?"


"Your last opportunity has come. For your own future or for that
of the world you seem to care little or nothing. Are you still
determined to oppose our wishes?"

"I am."

"You have yet an hour. Your final decision will be demanded of
you at the end of that time."

Faint sounds of withdrawal followed these words and Harley
suddenly discovered himself to be very cold. The note of danger
had touched him. For long it had been silent. Now it clamoured
insistently. He knew beyond all doubt that he was approaching a
crisis in his life. At its nature he could not even guess.

He began to pace the room nervously, listening for he knew not
what. His mind was filled with vague imaginings; when at last
came an overture to the grim test to be imposed upon him.

A slight metallic sound drew his glance in the direction of the
gilded screen. A sliding door of thick plate glass had been
closed behind it, filling the space between the me tal work and
the curtain. Then--the light in the brass lantern became

Standing rigidly, fists clenched, Paul Harley watched the
curtain. And as he watched, slowly it was drawn aside. He found
himself looking into a long room which appeared to be practically
The floor was spread with rugs and at the farther end folding
doors had been opened, so that he could see into a second room,
most elegantly appointed in Persian fashion. Here were silver
lanterns, and many silken cushions, out of which, as from a sea
of colour, arose slender pillars, the scheme possessing an air of
exotic luxury peculiarly Oriental.

Seated in a carved chair over which a leopard skin had been
thrown, and talking earnestly to some invisible co mpanion, whose
conversation seemed wholly to enthrall her, was Phil Abingdon!


"My God!" cried Innes, "here is proof that the chief was right!"

Wessex nodded in silent agreement. On the table lay the report of
Merton, the analyst, concerning the stains upon the serviette
which Harley had sent from the house of the late Sir Charles
Abingdon. Briefly, it stated that the serviette had been
sprinkled with some essential oil, the exact character of which
Merton had found himself unable to determine, its perfume, if it
ever possessed any, having disappeared. And the minute quantity
obtainable from the linen rendered ordinary tests difficult to
apply. The analyst's report, however, concluded as follows:

"Mr. Harley, having foreseen these difficulties, and having
apparently suspected that the oil was of Oriental origin,
recommended me, in the note which he enclosed with the serviette,
to confer with Dr. Warwick Grey. I send a copy of a highly
interesting letter which I have received from Doctor Grey, whose
knowledge of Eastern poison is unparalleled, and to whose opinion
I attach immense importance."

It was the contents of this appended letter which had inspired
Innes's remarks. Indeed, it contained matter which triumphantly
established Paul Harley's theory that Sir Charles Abingdon had
not died from natural causes. The letter was as follows:

'No.---- Harley Street
London, W. I.


'I am indebted to you and to Mr. Harley for an opportunity of
examining the serviette, which I return herewith. I agree that
the oil does not respond to ordinary tests, nor is any smell
perceptible. But you have noticed in your microscopic examination
of the stains that there is a peculiar crystalline formation upon
the surface. You state that this is quite unfamiliar to you,
which is not at all strange, since outside of the Himalayan
districts of Northwest India I have never met with it myself.
'Respecting the character of the oil employed, however, I am in
no doubt, and I actually possess a dried specimen of the flower
from which it is expressed. This is poetically known among the
Mangars, one of the fighting tribes of Nepal, as the Bloom or
Orchid of Sleep.

'It is found upon the lower Himalayan slopes, and bears a close
resemblance to the white odontoglossum of commerce, except that
the flower is much smaller. Its perfume attracts insects and
sometimes small animals and reptiles, although inhalation seems
to induce instant death. It may be detected in its natural state
by the presence of hundreds of dead flies and insects upon the
ground surrounding the plant. It is especially fatal to nocturnal
insects, its perfume being stronger at night.

'Preparation of the oil is an art peculiar to members of an
obscure sect established in that district, by whom it is said to
be employed for the removal of enemies.

'An article is sprinkled with it, and whilst the perfume, which
is reported to resemble that of cloves, remains percept ible, to
inhale it results in immediate syncope, although by what
physiological process I have never been enabled to determine.

'With the one exception which I have mentioned, during my stay in
Nepal and the surrounding districts I failed to obtain a specimen
of this orchid. I have twice seen the curious purple stain upon
articles of clothing worn by natives who had died suddenly and
mysteriously. The Mangars simply say, "He has offended someone.
It is the flower of sleep."

'I immediately recognized the colour of the stains upon the
enclosed serviette, and also the curious crystalline formation on
their surface. The identity of the "someone" to whom the Mangars
refer, I never established. I shall welcome any particulars
respecting the history of the serviette.

'Very truly yours,


"Sir Charles Abingdon was poisoned," said Wessex in a hushed
voice. "For the girl's sake I hate the idea, but we shall have to
get an exhumation order."

"It is impossible," returned Innes, shortly. "He was cremated."

"Good heavens," murmured Wessex, "I never knew."

"But after all," continued Inures, "it is just as well for
everyone concerned. The known facts are sufficient to establish
the murder, together with the report of Dr. Warwick Grey. But,
meanwhile, are we any nearer to learning the identity of the

"We are not!" said Wessex, grimly. "And what's more, when I get
to Scotland Yard, I have got to face the music. First Mr. Harley
goes, and now Nicol Brinn has disappeared!"

"It's almost unbelievable!"

"I took him for a white man," said the detective, earnestly. "I
accepted his parole for twenty-four hours. The twenty-four hours
expired about noon to-day, but since he played that trick on
Stokes last night and went out of his chambers, he has vanished

Innes stood up excitedly.

"Your ideas may be all wrong, Wessex!" he cried. "Don't you see
that he may have gone the same way as the chief?"

"He was mightily anxious to get out, at any rate."

"And you have no idea where he went?"

"Not the slightest. Following his performance of last night, of
course I was compelled to instal a man in the chambers, and this
morning someone rang up from the house of Lord Wolverham; he is
commanding officer of one of the Guards battalions, I believe. It
appears that Mr. Nicol Brinn not only locked up a representative
of the Criminal Investigation Department, but also stole a Rolls
Royce car from outside the Cavalry Club!"

"What!" cried Innes. "Stole a car?"

"Stole Lord Wolverham's car and calmly drove away in it. We have
failed to trace both car and man!" The detective inspector sighed
wearily. "Well, I suppose I must get along to the Yard. Stokes
has got the laugh on me this time."

Wearing a very gloomy expression, the detective inspector
proceeded on foot to New Scotland Yard, and being informed on his
arrival upstairs that the Assistant Commissioner was expecting
him, he entered the office of that great man.

The Assistant Commissioner, who had palpably seen military
service, was a big man with very tired eyes, and a quiet, almost
apologetic manner.

"Ah, Detective Inspector," he said, as Wessex entered. "I wanted
to see you about this business of Mr. Nicol Brinn."

"Yes, sir," replied Wessex; "naturally."

"Now," the Assistant Commissioner turned wearily in his chair,
and glanced up at his subordinate--"your accepting the parole of
a suspect, under the circumstances, was officially improper, but
I am not blaming you--I am not blaming you for a moment. Mr.
Nicol Brinn's well-known reputation justified your behaviour." He
laid one large hand firmly upon the table. "Mr. Nicol Brinn's
absence alters the matter entirely."

"I am well aware of it," murmured the inspector. "Although,"
continued the Assistant Commissioner, "Mr. Brinn's record leads
me to believe that he will have some suitable explanation to
offer, his behaviour, you will admit, is that of a guilty man?"

"It is, sir; it certainly is."

"The Press, fortunately, has learned nothing of this unpleasant
business, particularly unpleasant because it involves such
well-known people. You will see to it, Detective Inspector, that
all publicity is avoided if possible. Meanwhile, as a matter of
ordinary departmental routine, you will circulate Mr. Brinn's
description through the usual channels, and--" the Assistant
Commissioner raised his eyebrows slightly.

"You mean that?" asked Wessex.

"Certainly. He must be arrested by the first officer who
recognizes him."

"Very good, sir. I will move in the matter at once."

"Do so, please." The Assistant Commissioner sighed wearily, as
one of his telephones set up a muted buzzing. "That is all for
the moment, I think. Good morning."

Detective Inspector Wessex came out, quietly closing the door
behind him. He felt that he had been let down very lightly. But
nevertheless he was unpleasantly warm, and as he walked slowly
along the corridor he whistled softly, and:

"Arrest of Mr. Nicol Brinn," he muttered. "What a headline, if
they ever get it!"


Phil Abingdon arrived at Hillside in a state of mind which she
found herself unable to understand. Mrs. McMurdoch, who had
accepted the invitation under protest, saying that if Doctor
McMurdoch had been at home he would certainly have disapproved,
had so utterly fallen under the strange spell of Ormuz Khan, that
long before they had come to Hillside she was hanging upon his
every word in a way which was almost pathetic to watch.

On the other hand, Phil Abingdon had taken up a definite attitude
of defense; and perceiving this, because of his uncanny
intuitiveness, the Persian had exerted himself to the utmost,
more often addressing Phil than her companion, and strivi ng to
regain that mastery of her emotions which he had formerly
achieved, at least in part.

Her feelings, however, were largely compounded of fear, and fear
strengthened her defense. The repulsive part of Ormuz Khan's
character became more apparent to her than did the fascination
which she had once experienced. She distrusted him, distrusted
him keenly. She knew at the bottom of her heart that this had
always been so, but she had suffered his attentions in much the
same spirit as that which imbues the naturalist who studies the
habits of a poisonous reptile.

She knew that she was playing with fire, and in this knowledge
lay a dangerous pleasure. She had the utmost faith in her own
common sense, and was ambitious to fence with edged tools.

When at last the car was drawn up before the porch of Hillside,
and Ormuz Khan, stepping out, assisted the ladies to alight, for
one moment Phil Abingdon hesitated, although she knew that it was
already too late to do so. They were received by Mr. Rama Dass,
his excellency's courteous secretary, whom she had already met,
and whom Ormuz Khan presented to Mrs. McMurdoch. Almost

"You have missed Mr. Harley by only a few minutes," said Rama

"What!" exclaimed Phil, her eyes opening very widely.

"Oh, there is no occasion for alarm," explained the secretary in
his urbane manner. "He has ventured as far as Lower Claybury
station. The visit was unavoidable. He particularly requested
that we should commence luncheon, but hoped to be back before we
should have finished."

Phil Abingdon glanced rapidly from the face of the speaker to
that of Ormuz Khan. But her scrutiny of those unreadable
countenances availed her nothing. She was conscious of a great
and growing uneasiness; and Mrs. McMurdoch, misunderstanding the
expression upon her face, squeezed her arm playfully.

"Cheer up, dear," she whispered; "he will be here soon!"

Phil knew that her face had flushed deeply. Partly she was glad
of her emotions, and partly ashamed. This sweet embarrassment in
which there was a sort of pain was a new experience, but one
wholly delightful. She laughed, and accepting the arm of Ormuz
Khan, walked into a very English-looking library, followed by
Rama Dass and Mrs. McMurdoch. The house, she thought, was very
silent, and she found herself wondering why no servants had
Rama Dass had taken charge of the ladies' cloaks in the hall, and
in spite of the typical English environment in which she found
herself, Phil sat very near to Mrs. McMurdoch on a settee,
scarcely listening to the conversation, and taking no part in it.

For there was a strange and disturbing air of loneliness about
Hillside. She would have welcomed the appearance of a butler or a
parlourmaid, or any representative of the white race. Yes: there
lay the root of the matter--this feeling of aloofness from all
that was occidental, a feeling which the English appointments of
the room did nothing to dispel. Then a gong sounded and the party
went in to lunch.

A white-robed Hindu waited at table, and Phil discovered his
movements to be unpleasantly silent. There was something very
unreal about it all. She found herself constantly listening for
the sound of an approaching car, of a footstep, of a vo ice, the
voice of Paul Harley. This waiting presently grew unendurable,

"I hope Mr. Harley is safe," she said, in a rather unnatural
tone. "Surely he should have returned by now?"

Ormuz Khan shrugged his slight shoulders and glanced at a
diamond-studded wrist watch which he wore.

"There is nothing to fear," he declared, in his soft, musical
voice. "He knows how to take care of himself. And" --with a
significant glance of his long, magnetic eyes--"I am certain he
will return as speedily as possible."

Nevertheless, luncheon terminated, and Harley had not appeared.

"You have sometimes expressed a desire," said Ormuz Khan, "to see
the interior of a Persian house. Permit me to show you the only
really characteristic room which I allow myself in my English

Endeavouring to conceal her great anxiety, Phil allowed herself
to be conducted by the Persian to an apartment which realized her
dreams of that Orient which she had never visited.

Three beautiful silver lanterns depended from a domed ceiling in
which wonderfully woven tapestry was draped. The windows were
partly obscured by carved wooden screens, and the light entered
through little panels of coloured glass. There were cushioned
divans, exquisite pottery, and a playful fountain plashing in a
marble pool.

Ormuz Khan conducted her to a wonderfully carven chair over which
a leopard's skin was draped and there she seated herself. She saw
through a wide doorway before her a long and apparently
unfurnished room dimly lighted. At the farther end she could
vaguely discern violet-coloured draperies. Ormuz Khan gracefully
threw himself upon a divan to the right of this open door.

"This, Miss Abingdon," he said, "is a nearly exact reproduction
of a room of a house which I have in Ispahan. I do not claim that
it is typical, but does its manner appeal to you?"

"Immensely," she replied, looking around her.

She became aware of a heavy perfume of hyacinths, and presently
observed that there were many bowls of those flowers set upon
little tables, and in niches in the wall.

"Yet its atmosphere is not truly of the Orient."

"Are such apartments uncommon, then, in Persia?" asked Phil,
striving valiantly to interest herself in the conversation.

"I do not say so," he returned, crossing one delicate foot over
the other, in languorous fashion. "But many things which are
typically of the Orient would probably disillusion you, Miss

"In what way?" she asked, wondering why Mrs. McMurdoch had not
joined them.

"In many subtle ways. The real wonder and the mystery of the East
lie not upon the surface, but beneath it. And beneath the East of
to-day lies the East of yesterday."

The speaker's expression grew rapt, and he spoke in the mystic
manner which she knew and now dreaded. Her anxiety for the return
of Paul Harley grew urgent--a positive need, as, meeting the gaze
of the long, magnetic eyes, she felt again, like the touch of
cold steel, all the penetrating force of this man's will. She was
angrily aware of the fact that his gaze was holding hers
hypnotically, that she was meeting it contrary to her wish and
inclination. She wanted to look away but found herself looking
steadily into the coal-black eyes of Ormuz Khan.

"The East of yesterday"--his haunting voice seemed to reach her
from a great distance--"saw the birth of all human knowledge and
human power; and to us the East of yesterday is the East of

Phil became aware that a sort of dreamy abstraction was creeping
over her, when in upon this mood came a sound which stimulated
her weakening powers of resistance.

Dimly, for all the windows of the room were closed, she heard a
car come up and stop before the house. It aroused her from the
curious condition of lethargy into which she was falling. She
turned her head sharply aside, the physical reflection of a
mental effort to remove her gaze from the long, magnetic eyes of
Ormuz Khan. And:
"Do you think that is Mr. Harley?" she asked, and failed to
recognize her own voice.

"Possibly," returned the Persian, speaking very gently.

With one ivory hand he touched his knee for a moment, the only
expression of disappointment which he allowed himself.

"May I ask you to go and enquire?" continued Phil, now wholly
mistress of herself again. "I am wondering, too, what can have
become of Mrs. McMurdoch."

"I will find out," said Ormuz Khan.

He rose, his every movement possessing a sort of feline grace. He
bowed and walked out of the room. Phil Abingdon heard in the
distance the motor restarted and the car being driven away from
Hillside. She stood up restlessly.

Beneath the calm of the Persian's manner she had detected the
presence of dangerous fires. The silence of the house oppressed
her. She was not actually frightened yet, but intuitively she
knew that all was not well. Then came a new sound arousing active
fear at last.

Someone was rapping upon one of the long, masked windows! Phil
Abingdon started back with a smothered exclamation.

"Quick!" came a high, cool voice, "open this window. You are in

The voice was odd, peculiar, but of one thing she was certain. It
was not the voice of an Oriental. Furthermore, it held a note of
command, and something, too, which inspired trust.

She looked quickly about her to make sure that she was alone. And
then, running swiftly to the window from which the sound had
come, she moved a heavy gilded fastening which closed it, and
drew open the heavy leaves.

A narrow terrace was revealed with a shrubbery beyond; and
standing on the terrace was a tall, thin man wearing a light coat
over evening dress. He looked pale, gaunt, and unshaven, and
although the regard of his light eyes was almost dreamy, there
was something very tense in his pose.

"I am Nicol Brinn," said the stranger. "I knew your father. You
have walked into a trap. I am here to get you out of it. Can you

"Do you mean an automobile?" asked Phil, breathlessly.

"A Rolls Royce."

"Come right out."

"My furs! my hat!"

"Something bigger is at stake."

It was all wildly bizarre, almost unbelievable. Phil Abingdon had
experienced in her own person the insidious power of Ormuz Khan.
She now found herself under the spell of a personality at least
as forceful, although in a totally different way. She found
herself running through a winding path amid bushes, piloted by
this strange, unshaven man, to whom on sight she had given her
trust unquestioningly!

"When we reach the car," he said over his shoulder, "ask no
questions--head for home, and don't stop for anything--on two
legs or on four. That's the first thing--most important; then,
when you know you're safe, telephone Scotland Yard to send a raid
squad down by road, and do it quick."


The events which led to the presence of Mr. Nicol Brinn at so
opportune a moment were--consistent with the character of that
remarkable man--of a sensational nature.

Having commandeered the Rolls Royce from the door of the Cavalry
Club, he had immediately, by a mental process which many perils
had perfected, dismissed the question of rightful ownership from
his mind. The fact that he might be intercepted by police scouts
he refused to entertain. The limousine driven by the Hindu
chauffeur was still in sight, and until Mr. Nicol Brinn had seen
it garaged, nothing else mattered, nothing else counted, and
nothing else must be permitted to interfere.

Jamming his hat tightly upon his head, he settled down at the
wheel, drawing up rather closer to the limousine as the chase lay
through crowded thoroughfares and keeping his quarry comfortably
in sight across Westminster Bridge and through the outskirts of

He had carefully timed the   drive to the unknown abode of
Fire-Tongue, and unless it   had been prolonged, the more
completely to deceive him,   he had determined that the house lay
not more than twenty miles   from Piccadilly.

When Mitcham was passed, and the limousine headed straight on
into Surrey, he decided that there had been no doubling, but that
the house to which he had been taken lay in one of these
unsuspected country backwaters, which, while they are literally
within sight of the lights of London, have nevertheless a
remoteness as complete as secrecy could desire.

It was the deserted country roads which he feared, for if the man
ahead of him should suspect pursuit, a difficult problem might

By happy chance Nicol Brinn, an enthusiastic motorist, knew the
map of Surrey as few Englishmen knew it. Indeed, there was no
beauty spot within a forty-mile radius of London to which he
could not have driven by the best and shortest route, at a
moment's notice. This knowledge aided him now.

For presently at a fork in the road he saw that the driver of the
limousine had swung to the left, taking the low road, that to the
right offering a steep gradient. The high road was the direct
road to Lower Claybury, the low road a detour to the same.

Nicol Brinn mentally reviewed the intervening countryside, and
taking a gambler's chance, took the Rolls Royce up the hill. He
knew exactly what he was about, and he knew that the powerful
engine would eat up the slope with ease.

Its behaviour exceeded his expectations, and he found himself
mounting the acclivity at racing speed. At its highest point, the
road, skirting a hilltop, offered an extensive view of the valley
below. Here Nicol Brinn pulled up and, descending, watched and

In the stillness he could plainly hear the other automobile
humming steadily along the lowland road below. He concentrated
his mind upon the latter part of that strange journey, striving
to recall any details which had marked it immediately preceding
the time when he had detected the rustling of leaves and knew
that they had entered a carriage drive.

Yes, there had been a short but steep hill; and immediately
before this the car had passed over a deeply rutted road, or --he
had a sudden inspiration--over a level crossing.

He knew of just such a hilly road immediately behind Lower
Claybury station. Indeed, it was that by which he should be
compelled to descend if he continued to pursue his present route
to the town. He could think of no large, detached house, the
Manor Park excepted, which corresponded to the one which he
sought. But that in taking the high road he had acted even more
wisely than he knew, he was now firmly convinced.

He determined to proceed as far as the park gates as speedily as
possible. Therefore, returning to the wheel, he sent the car
along the now level road at top speed, so that the railings of
the Manor Park, when presently he found himself skirting the
grounds, had the semblance of a continuous iron fence wherever
the moonlight touched them.

He passed the head of the road dipping down to Lower Claybury,
but forty yards beyond pulled up and descended. Again he stood
listening, and:

"Good!" he muttered.

He could hear the other car labouring up the slope. He ran along
to the corner of the lane, and, crouching close under the bushes,
waited for its appearance. As he had supposed, the chauffeur
turned the car to the right.

"Good!" muttered Nicol Brinn again.

There was a baggage-rack immediately above the number plate. Upon
this Nicol Brinn sprang with the agility of a wildcat, settling
himself upon his perilous perch before the engine had had time to
gather speed.

When presently the car turned into the drive of Hillside, Nicol
Brinn dropped off and dived into the bushes on the ri ght of the
path. From this hiding place he saw the automobile driven around
the front of the house to the garage, which was built out from
the east wing. Not daring to pursue his investigations until the
chauffeur had retired, he sought a more comforta ble spot near a
corner of the lawn and there, behind a bank of neglected flowers,
lay down, watching the man's shadowy figure moving about in the

Although he was some distance from the doors he could see that
there was a second car in the place--a low, torpedo-bodied racer,
painted battleship gray. This sight turned his thoughts in
another direction.

Very cautiously he withdrew to the drive again, retracing his
steps to the lane, and walking back to the spot where he had left
the Rolls Royce, all the time peering about him to right and
left. He was looking for a temporary garage for the car, but one
from which, if necessary, he could depart in a hurry. The shell
of an ancient barn, roofless and desolate, presently invited
inspection and, as a result, a few minutes later Colonel Lord
Wolverham's luxurious automobile was housed for the night in
these strange quarters.

When Nicol Brinn returned to Hillside, he found the garage locked
and the lights extinguished. Standing under a moss-grown wall
which sheltered him from the house, from his case he selected a
long black cigar, lighted it with care and, having his hands
thrust in the pockets of his light overcoat and the cigar
protruding aggressively from the left corner of his mouth, he
moved along to an angle of the wall and stared reflectively at
the silent house.
A mental picture arose of a secret temple in the shadow of the
distant Himalayas. Was it credible that this quiet country house,
so typical of rural England, harboured that same dread secret
which he had believed to be locked away in those Indian hills?
Could he believe that the dark and death-dealing power which he
had seen at work in the East was now centred here, within
telephone-call of London?

The fate of Sir Charles Abingdon and of Paul Harley would seem to
indicate that such was the case. Beyond doubt, the document of
which Rama Dass had spoken was some paper in the possession of
the late Sir Charles. Much that had been mysterious was cleared
up. He wondered why it had not occurred to him from the first
that Sir Charles's inquiry, which he had mentioned to Paul
Harley, respecting Fire-Tongue, had been due to the fact that the
surgeon had seen the secret mark upon his arm after the accident
in the Haymarket. He remembered distinctly that his sleeve had
been torn upon that occasion. He could not imagine, however, what
had directed the attention of the organization to Sir Charles,
and for what reason his death had been decided upon.

He rolled his cigar from corner to corner of his mouth, staring
reflectively with lack-lustre eyes at the silent house before
him. In the moonlight it made a peaceful picture enough. A
cautious tour of the place revealed a lighted window upon the
first floor. Standing in the shadow of an old apple tree, Nicol
Brinn watched the blind of this window minute after minute,
patiently waiting for a shadow to appear upon it; and at last his
patience was rewarded.

A shadow appeared--the shadow of a woman!

Nicol Brinn dropped his cigar at his feet and set his heel upon
it. A bitter-sweet memory which had been with him for seven years
arose again in his mind. There is a kind of mountain owl in
certain parts of northern India which possesses a curiously high,
plaintive note. He wondered if he could remember and reproduce
that note.

He made the attempt, repeating the cry three times. At the third
repetition the light in the first floor window went out. He heard
the sound of the window being gently opened. Then a voice--a
voice which held the sweetest music in the world for the man who
listened below--spoke softly:


"Naida!" he called. "Come down to me. You must. Don't answer. I
will wait here."

"Promise you will let me return!"

He hesitated.

"I promise."


The first faint spears of morning creeping through the trees
which surrounded Hillside revealed two figures upon a rustic
bench in the little orchard adjoining the house. A pair
incongruous enough--this dark-eyed Eastern woman, wrapped in a
long fur cloak, and Nicol Brinn, gaunt, unshaven, fantastic in
his evening dress, revealed now in the gray morning light.

"Look!" whispered Naida. "It is the dawn. I must go!"

Nicol Brinn clenched his teeth tightly but made no reply.

"You promised," she said, and although her voice was very tender
she strove to detach his arm, which was locked about her

He nodded grimly.

"I'll keep my word. I made a contract with hell with my eyes
open, and I'll stick to it." He stood up suddenly. "Go back,
Naida!" he said. "Go back! You have my promise, now, and I'm
helpless. But at last I see a way, and I'm going to take it."

"What do you mean?" she cried, standing up and c lutching his arm.

"Never mind." His tone was cool again. "Just go back."

"You would not--" she began.

"I never broke my word in my life, and even now I'm not going to
begin. While you live I stay silent."

In the growing light Naida looked about her affrightedly. Then,
throwing her arms impulsively around Brinn, she kissed him--a
caress that was passionate but sexless; rather the kiss of a
mother who parts with a beloved son than that which a woman
bestows upon the man she loves; an act of renunciation.

He uttered a low cry and would have seized her in his arms but,
lithely evading him, she turned, stifling a sob, and darted away
through the trees toward the house.

For long he stood looking after her, fists clenched and his face
very gray in the morning light. Some small inner voice told him
that his new plan, and the others which he had built upon it,
must crumble and fall as a castle of sand. He groaned and,
turning aside, made his way through the shrubbery to the

He was become accessory to a murder; for he had learned for what
reason and by what means Sir Charles Abingdon had been
assassinated. He had even learned the identity of his assassin;
had learned that the dreaded being called Fire-Tongue in India
was known and respected throughout the civilized world as His
Excellency Ormuz Khan!

Paul Harley had learned these things also, and now at this very
hour Paul Harley lay a captive in Hillside. Naida had assured him
that Paul Harley was alive and safe. It had been decided that his
death would lead to the destruction of the movement, but pressure
was being brought upon him to ensure his silence.

Yes, he, Nicol Brinn, was bound and manacled to a gang of
assassins; and because his tongue was tied, because the woman he
loved better than anything in the world was actually a member of
the murderous group, he must pace the deserted country lanes
inactive; he must hold his hand, although he might summon the
resources of New Scotland Yard by phoning from Low er Claybury

Through life his word had been his bond, and Nicol Brinn was
incapable of compromising with his conscience. But the direct way
was barred to him. Nevertheless, no task could appal the
inflexible spirit of the man, and he had registered a silent vow
that Ormuz Khan should never leave England alive.

Not a soul was astir yet upon the country roads, and sitting down
upon a grassy bank, Nicol Brinn lighted one of his black cigars,
which in times of stress were his food and drink , upon which if
necessary he could carry-on for forty-eight hours upon end.

In connection with his plan for coercing Harley, Ormuz Khan had
gone to London by rail on the previous night, departing from
Lower Claybury station at about the time that Colonel Lord
Wolverham came out of the Cavalry Club to discover his Rolls
Royce to be missing. This same Rolls Royce was now a source of
some anxiety to Nicol Brinn, for its discovery by a passing
labourer in the deserted barn seemed highly probable.

However, he had matters of greater urgency to think about, not
the least of these being the necessity of concealing his presence
in the neighbourhood of Hillside. Perhaps his Sioux-like face
reflected a spirit allied in some respects to that of the once
great Indian tribe.

His genius for taking cover, perfected upon many a big-game
expedition, enabled him successfully to accomplish the feat; so
that, when the limousine, which he had watched go by during the
morning, returned shortly after noon, the lack-lustre eyes were
peering out through the bushes near the entrance to the drive.
Instinct told him that the pretty girl with whom Ormuz Khan was
deep in conversation could be none other than Phil Abingdon, but
the identity of her companion he could not even guess. On the
other hand, that this poisonously handsome Hindu, who bent
forward so solicitously toward his charming travelling companion,
was none other than the dreaded Fire-Tongue, he did not doubt.

He returned to a strategic position which he had discovered
during the night. In a measure he was nonplussed. That the
presence of the girl was primarily associated with the coercion
of Paul Harley, he understood; but might it not portend something
even more sinister?

When, later, the limousine departed again, at great risk of
detection he ran across a corner of the lawn to peer out into the
lane, in order that he might obtain a glimpse of its occupant.
This proved to be none other than Phil Abingdon's elderly
companion. She had apparently been taken ill, and a dignified
Hindu gentleman, wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez, was in

Nicol Brinn clenched his jaws hard. The girl had fallen into a
trap. He turned rapidly, facing the house. Only at one point did
the shrubbery approach the wall, but for that point he set out
hot foot, passing from bush to bush with Indian cleverness,
tense, alert, and cool in despite of his long vigil.

At last he came to the shallow veranda with its four sightless
windows backed by fancifully carven screens. He stepped up to the
first of these and pressed his ear against the glass.

Fate was with him, for almost immediately he detected a smooth,
musical voice speaking in the room beyond. A woman's voice
answered and, listening intently, he detected the sound of a
closing door.

Thereupon he acted: with the result, as has appeared, that Phil
Abingdon, hatless, without her furs, breathless and more
frightened than she had ever been in her life, presently found
herself driving a luxurious Rolls Royce out of a roofless barn on
to the highroad, and down the slope to Claybury station.

It was at about this time, or a little later, that Paul Harley
put into execution a project which he had formed. The ventilator
above the divan, which he had determined to be the spy-hole
through which his every movement was watched, had an ornamental
framework studded with metal knobs. He had recently discovered an
electric bell-push in the centre panel of the massive door of his

Inwardly on fire, imagining a thousand and one horrors centring
about the figure of Phil Abingdon, but retaining his outward calm
by dint of a giant effort, he pressed this bell and waited.
Perhaps two minutes elapsed. Then the glass doors beyond the
gilded screen were drawn open, and the now-familiar voice spoke:

"Mr. Paul Harley?"

"Yes," he replied, "I have made my final decision."

"And that is?"

"I agree."

"You are wise," the voice replied. "A statement will be placed
before you for signature. When you have signed it, ring the bell
again, and in a few minutes you will be free."

Vaguely he detected the speaker withdrawing. Thereupon, heaving a
loud sigh, he removed his coat, looked about him as if in quest
of some place to hang it, and finally, fixing his gaze upon the
studded grating, stood upon the divan and hung his coat over the
spy-hole! This accomplished, he turned.

The table was slowly sinking through the gap in the floor

Treading softly, he moved forward and seated himself cross-legged
upon it! It continued to descend, and he found himself in
absolute darkness.

Nicol Brinn ran on to the veranda and paused for a moment to take
breath. The window remained open, as Phil Abingdon had left it.
He stepped into the room with its elegant Persian appointments.
It was empty. But as he crossed the threshold, he paused,
arrested by the sound of a voice.

"A statement will be placed before you," said the voice, "and
when you have signed it, in a few minutes you will be free."

Nicol Brinn silently dropped flat at the back of a divan, as Rama
Dass, coming out of the room which communicated with the golden
screen, made his way toward the distant door. Having one eye
raised above the top of the cushions, Nicol Brinn watched him,
recognizing the man who had accompanied the swooning lady. She
had been deposited, then, at no great distance from the house.

He was to learn later that poor Mrs. McMurdoch, in her
artificially induced swoon, had been left in charge of a
hospitable cottager, while her solicitous Oriental escort had
sped away in quest of a physician. But at the moment matters of
even greater urgency engaged his attention.

Creeping forward to the doorway by which Rama Dass had gone out,
Nicol Brinn emerged upon a landing from which stairs both
ascended and descended. Faint sounds of footsteps below guided
him, and although from all outward seeming he appeared to saunter
casually down, his left hand was clutching the butt of a Colt

He presently found himself in a maze of basements--kitchens of
the establishment, no doubt. The sound of footsteps no longer
guided him. He walked along, and in a smaller deserted pantry
discovered the base of a lift shaft in which some sort of small
elevator worked. He was staring at this reflectively, when, for
the second time in his adventurous career, a silken cord was
slipped tightly about his throat!

He was tripped and thrown. He fought furiously, but the fatal
knee pressure came upon his spine so shrewdly as to deprive him
of the strength to raise his hands.

"My finish!" were the words that flashed through his mind, as
sounds like the waves of a great ocean beat upon his ears and
darkness began to descend.

Then, miraculously, the pressure ceased; the sound of great
waters subsided; and choking, coughing, he fought his way back to
life, groping like a blind man and striving to regain his feet.

"Mr. Brinn!" said a vaguely familiar voice. "Mr. Brinn!"

The realities reasserted themselves. Before him, pale, wide-eyed,
and breathing heavily, stood Paul Harley; and prone upon the
floor of the pantry lay Rama Dass, still clutching one end of the
silken rope in his hand!

"Mr. Harley!" gasped Brinn. "My God, sir!" He clutched at his
bruised throat. "I have to thank you for my life."

He paused, looking down at the prone figure as Harley, dropping
upon his knees, turned the man over.

"I struck him behind the ear," he muttered, "and gave him every
ounce. Good heavens!"

He had slipped his hand inside Rama Dass's vest, and now he
looked up, his face very grim.

"Good enough!" said Brinn, coolly. "He asked for it; he's got it.
Take this." He thrust the Colt automatic into Harley's hand as
the latter stood up again.

"What do we do now?" asked Harley.

"Search the house," was the reply. "Everything coloured you see,
shoot, unless I say no."

"Miss Abingdon?"
"She's safe. Follow me."

Straight up two flights of stairs led Nicol Brinn, taking three
steps at a stride. Palpably enough the place was deserted. Ormuz
Khan's plans for departure were complete.

Into two rooms on the first floor they burst, to find them
stripped and bare. On the threshold of the third Brinn stopped
dead, and his gaunt face grew ashen. Then he tottered across the
room, arms outstretched.

"Naida," he whispered. "My love, my love!"

Paul Harley withdrew quietly. He had begun to walk along the
corridor when the sound of a motor brought him up sharply. A
limousine was being driven away from the side entrance! Not alone
had he heard that sound. His face deathly, and the lack -lustre
eyes dully on fire, Nicol Brinn burst out of the room and, not
heeding the presence of Harley, hurled himself down the stairs.
He was as a man demented, an avenging angel.

"There he is!" cried Harley--"heading for the Dover Road!"

Nicol Brinn, at the wheel of the racer--the same in which Harley
had made his fateful journey and which had afterward been
concealed in the garage at Hillside--scarcely nodded.

Nearer they drew to the quarry, and nearer. Once --twice--and
again, the face of Ormuz Khan peered out of the window at the
rear of the limousine.

They drew abreast; the road was deserted. And they passed
slightly ahead.

Paul Harley glanced at the granite face of his companion with an
apprehension he was unable to conceal. This was a cool madman who
drove. What did he intend to do?

Inch by inch, Nicol Brinn edged the torpedo body nearer to the
wheels of the racing limousine. The Oriental chauffeur drew in
ever closer to the ditch bordering the roadside. He shouted
hoarsely and was about to apply the brakes when the two cars

A rending crash came--a hoarse scream--and the big limousine
toppled over into the ditch.

Harley felt himself hurled through space.

"Shall I follow on to Lower Claybury, sir?" asked Inspector
Wessex, excitedly.

Phil Abingdon's message had come through nearly an hour before,
and a party had been despatched in accordance with Brinn's
instructions. Wessex had returned to New Scotland Yard too late
to take charge, and now, before the Assistant Commissioner had
time to reply, a 'phone buzzed.

"Yes?" said the Assistant Commissioner, taking up one of the
several instruments: "What!"

Even this great man, so justly celebrated for his placid
demeanour, was unable to conceal his amazement.

"Yes," he added. "Let him come up!" He replaced the receiver and
turning to Wessex: "Mr. Nicol Brinn is here!" he informed him.

"What's that!" cried the inspector, quite startled out of his
usual deferential manner.

Footsteps sounded in the corridor. Came a rap at the door.

"Come in," said the Assistant Commissioner.

The door was thrown open and Nicol Brinn entered. One who knew
him well would have said that he had aged ten years. Even to the
eye of Wessex he looked an older man. He wore a shoddy suit and a
rough tweed cap and his left arm was bandaged.

"Gentlemen," he said, without other greeting, "I'm here to make a
statement. I desire that a shorthand-writer attend to take it

He dropped weakly into a chair which Wessex placed for him. The
Assistant Commissioner, doubtless stimulated by the manner of his
extraordinary visitor, who now extracted a cigar from t he breast
pocket of his ill-fitting jacket and nonchalantly lighted it,
successfully resumed his well-known tired manner, and, pressing a

"One shall attend, Mr. Brinn," he said.

A knock came at the door and a sergeant entered.

"Send Ferris," directed the Assistant Commissioner. "Quickly."

Two minutes later a man came in carrying a note book and fountain
pen. The Assistant Commissioner motioned him to a chair, and:

"Pray proceed, Mr. Brinn," he said.


"The statement which I have to make, gentlemen, will almost
certainly appear incredible to you. However, when it has been
transcribed I will sign it. And I am going to say here and now
that there are points in the narrative which I am in a position
to substantiate. What I can't prove you must take my word for.
But I warn you that the story is tough.

"I have a certain reputation for recklessness. I don't say it may
not be inherent; but if you care to look the matter up, you will
find that the craziest phase of my life is that covering the last
seven years. The reason why I have courted death during that
period I am now about to explain.

"Although my father was no traveller, I think I was born with the
wanderlust. I started to explore the world in my Harvard
vacations, and when college days were over I set about the
business whole-heartedly. Where I went and what I did, up to the
time that my travels led me to India, is of no interest to you or
to anybody else, because in India I found heaven and hell--a
discovery enough to satisfy the most adventurous man alive.

"At this present time, gentlemen, I am not going to load you with
geographical details. The exact spot at which my life ended, in a
sense which I presently hope to make clear, can be located at
leisure by the proper authorities, to whom I will supply a
detailed map which I have in my possession. I am even prepared to
guide the expedition, if the Indian Government considers an
expedition necessary and cares to accept my services. It's good
enough for you to know that pig-sticking and tiger-hunting having
begun to pall upon me somewhat, I broke away from Anglo -Indian
hospitality, and headed up country, where the Himalayas beckoned.
I had figured on crossing at a point where no man has crossed
yet, but that project was interrupted, and I'm here to tell you

"Up there in the northwest provinces they told me I was crazy
when I outlined, one night in a mess, of which I was a guest at
the time, my scheme for heading northeast toward a tributary of
the Ganges which would bring me to the neighbourhood of
Khatmandu, right under the shadow of Everest.

"'Once you leave Khatmandu,' said the mess president, 'you are
outside the pale as far as British influence is concerned. I
suppose you understand that?'

"I told him I quite understood it.

"'You can't reach Tibet that way,' he said.

"'Never mind, sir,' I answered. 'I can try, if I feel like it.'

"Three days later I set out. I am not superstitious, and if I
take a long time to make a plan, once I've made it I generally
stick to it. But right at the very beginning of my expedition I
had a warning, if ever a man had one. The country through which
my route lay is of very curious formation. If you can imagine a
section of your own west country viewed through a giant
magnifying glass, you have some sort of picture of the territory
in which I found myself.

"Gigantic rocks stand up like monstrous tors, or towers,
sometimes offering sheer precipices of many hundreds of feet in
height. On those sides of these giant tors, however, which are
less precipitous, miniature forests are sometimes found, and
absolutely impassable jungles.

"Bordering an independent state, this territory is not at all
well known, but I had secured as a guide a man named Vadi --or
that was the name he gave me whom I knew to be a high -caste
Brahmin of good family. He had been with me for some time, and I
thought I could trust him. Therefore, once clear of British
territory, I took him into my confidence respecting the real
object of my journey.

"This was not primarily to scale a peak of the Himalayas, nor
even to visit Khatmandu, but to endeavour to obtain a glimpse of
the Temple of Fire!

"That has excited your curiosity, gentlemen. I don't suppose any
one here has ever heard of the Temple of Fire.

"By some it is regarded as a sort of native legend but it is more
than a legend. It is a fact. For seven years I have known it to
be a fact, but my tongue has been tied. Listen. Even down in
Bombay, the coming of the next great Master is awaited by certain
of the natives; and for more than ten years now it has been
whispered from end to end of India that he was about to proclaim
himself, that disciples moved secretly among the people of every
province, and that the unknown teacher in person awaited his hour
in a secret temple up near the Tibetan frontier.

"A golden key opens many doors, gentlemen, and at the time of
which I am speaking I had obtained more information respecting
this secret religion or cult than any other member of the white
races had ever collected, or so I thought at the time. I had
definite evidence to show that the existence of this man, or
demi-god--for by some he was said to possess superhuman
powers--was no myth, but an actual fact.

"The collecting of this data was extremely perilous, and one of
my informants, with whom I had come in contact while passing
through the central provinces, died mysteriously the night before
I left Nagpur. I wondered very much on my way north why I was not
molested, for I did not fail to see that the death of the man in
Nagpur was connected with the fact that he had divulged to me
some of the secrets of the religion of Fire-Tongue. Indeed, it
was from him that I first learned the name of the high priest of
the cult of Fire. Why I was not molested I learned later.

"But to return to Vadi, my Brahmin guide. We had camped for the
night in the shadow of one of those giant tors which I have
mentioned. The bearers were seated around their fire at some
little distance from us, and Vadi and I were consulting
respecting our route in the morning, when I decided to take him
into my confidence. Accordingly:

"'Vadi,' I said, 'I know for a positive fact that we are within
ten miles of the secret Temple of Fire.'

"I shall never forget the look in his eyes, with the reflection
of the firelight dancing in them; but he never moved a muscle.

"'The sahib is wise,' he replied.

"'So is Vadi,' said I. 'Therefore he knows how happy a thousand
pounds of English money would make him. It is his in return for a
sight of the Temple.'

"Still as a carven image, he squatted there watching me,
unmoving, expressionless. Then:

"'A man may die for nothing,' he returned, softly. 'Why should
the sahib pay a thousand pounds?'

"'Why should the sahib die?' said I.

"'It is forbidden for any to see the Temple, even from a

"'But if no one ever knows that I have seen it?'

"'Fire-Tongue knows everything,' he replied, and as he pronounced
the name, he performed a curious salutation, touching his
forefinger with the tip of his tongue, and then laying his hand
upon his brow, upon his lips, and upon his breast, at the same
time bowing deeply. 'His vengeance is swift and terrible. He
wills a man to die, and the man is dead. None save those who have
passed through the tests may set eyes upon his temple, nor even
speak his name.'

"This conversation took place, as I have already mentioned, in
the shadow of one of those strange stone hillocks which abounded
here, and it was at this point that I received a warning which
might have deterred many men, since it was inexplicable and
strangely awesome.

"My attention was drawn to the phenomenon by a sudden cessation
of chatter amongst the bearers seated around their fire. I became
aware that an absolute stillness had fallen, and in the eyes of
the Brahmin who sat facing me I saw a look of exaltation, of wild

"I jerked my head around, looking back over my shoulder, and what
I saw I shall never forget, nor to this day have I been able to
explain the means by which the illusion was produced.

"Moving downward toward me through the jungle darkness, slowly ,
evenly, but at a height above the ground of what I judged to be
about fifteen feet, was a sort of torch or flambeau, visible
because it was faintly luminous; and surmounting it was a darting
tongue of blue flame!

"At the moment that I set eyes upon this apparently supernatural
spectacle the bearers, crying some word in Hindustani which I did
not understand, rose and fled in a body.

"I may say here that I never saw any of them again; although,
considering that they took nothing with them, how they regained
the nearest village is a mystery which I have never solved.

"Gentlemen, I know the East as few of my fellow-citizens know it.
I know something of the powers which are latent in some Orientals
and active in others. That my Brahmin guide was a hypnotist and
an illusionist, I have since thought.

"For, even as the pattering footsteps of the bearers grew faint
in the distance, the fiery torch disappeared as if by magic, and
a silken cord was about my throat!

"As I began a desperate fight for life, I realized that, whatever
else Vadi might be, he was certainly an expert thug. The jungle,
the rocks, seemed to swim around me as I crashed to the ground
and felt the Brahmin's knee in the small of my back."


"How I managed to think of any defense against such an attack,
and especially in the circumstances, is a matter I have often
wondered about since. How, having thought of it, I succeeded in
putting it into execution, is probably more wonderful still. But
I will just state what happened.

"You may observe that I have large hands. Their size and strength
served me well on this occasion. At the moment that the rope
tightened about my throat I reached up and grasped the Br ahmin's
left thumb. Desperation gave me additional strength, and I
snapped it like a stick of candy.

"Just in the nick of time I felt the cord relax, and, although
the veins in my head seemed to be bursting, I managed to get my
fingers under that damnable rope. To this very hour I can hear
Vadi's shriek of pain as I broke his thumb, and it brings the
whole scene back to me.

"Clutching the rope with my left hand, I groaned and lay still.
The Brahmin slightly shifted his position, which was what I
wanted him to do. The brief respite had been sufficient. As he
moved, I managed to draw my knees up, very slightly, for he was a
big, heavy man, but sufficiently to enable me to throw him off
and roll over.

"Then, gentlemen, I dealt with him as he had meant to deal with
me; only I used my bare hands and made a job of it.

"I stood up, breathing heavily, and looked down at him where he
lay in the shadows at my feet. Dusk had come with a million
stars, and almost above my head were flowering cre epers festooned
from bough to bough. The two campfires danced up and cast their
red light upon the jagged rocks of the hillock, which started up
from the very heart of the thicket, to stand out like some giant
pyramid against the newly risen moon.

"There were night things on the wing, and strange whispering
sounds came from the forests clothing the hills. Then came a
distant, hollow booming like the sound of artillery, which echoed
down the mountain gorges and seemed to roll away over the lowland
swamps and die, inaudible, by the remote river. Yet I stood
still, looking down at the dead man at my feet. For this strange,
mysterious artillery was a phenomenon I had already met with on
this fateful march--weird enough and inexplicable, but no novelty
to me, for I had previously met with it in the Shan Hills of

"I was thinking rapidly. It was clear enough now why I had
hitherto been unmolested. To Vadi the task had been allotted by
the mysterious organization of which he was a member, of removing
me quietly and decently, under circumstances which would lead to
no official inquiry. Although only animals, insects, and reptiles
seemed to be awake about me, yet I could not get rid of the idea
that I was watched.

"I remembered the phantom light, and that memory was an
unpleasant one. For ten minutes or more I stood there watching
and listening, but nothing molested me, nothing human approached.
With a rifle resting across my knees, I sat down in the entrance
to my tent to await the dawn.

"Later in the night, those phantom guns boomed out again, and
again their booming died away in the far valleys. The fires
burned lower and lower, but I made no attempt to replenish them;
and because I sat there so silent, all kinds of jungle creatures
crept furtively out of the shadows and watched me with their
glittering eyes. Once a snake crossed almost at my feet, and once
some large creature of the cat species, possibly a puma, showed
like a silhouette upon the rocky slopes above.

"So the night passed, and dawn found me still sitting there, the
dead man huddled on the ground not three paces from me. I am a
man who as a rule thinks slowly, but when the light came my mind
was fully made up.
"From the man who had died in Nagpur I had learned more about the
location of the City of Fire than I had confided to Vadi. In
fact, I thought I could undertake to find the way. Upon the most
important point of all, however, I had no information: that is to
say, I had no idea how to obtain entrance to the place; for I had
been given to understand that the way in was a secret known only
to the initiated.

"Nevertheless, I had no intention of turning back; and, although
I realized that from this point onward I must largely trust to
luck, I had no intention of taking unnecessary chances.
Accordingly, I dressed myself in Vadi's clothes, and, being very
tanned at this time, I think I made a fairly creditable native.

"Faintly throughout the night, above the other sounds of the
jungle, I had heard that of distant falling water. Now, my
informant at Nagpur, in speaking of the secret temple, had used
the words:

"'Whoever would see the fire must quit air and pass through

"This mysterious formula he had firmly declined to tran slate into
comprehensible English; but during my journey I had been
considering it from every angle, and I had recently come to the
conclusion that the entrance to this mysterious place was in some
way concealed by water. Recollecting the gallery under Niagara
Falls, I wondered if some similar natural formation was to be
looked for here.

"Now, in the light of the morning sun, looking around me from the
little plateau upon which I stood, and remembering a vague
description of the country which had been given to me, I decided
that I was indeed in the neighbourhood of the Temple of Fire.

"We had followed a fairly well-defined path right to this
plateau, and that it was nothing less than the high road to the
citadel of Fire-Tongue, I no longer doubted. Beneath me stretched
a panorama limned in feverish greens and unhealthy yellows.
Scarlike rocks striated the jungle clothing the foothills, and
through the dancing air, viewed from the arid heights, they had
the appearance of running water.

"Swamps to the southeast showed like unhealing wounds upon the
face of the landscape. Beyond them spread the lower river waters,
the bank of the stream proper being discernible only by reason of
a greater greenness in the palm-tops. Venomous green slopes
beyond them again, a fringe of dwarf forest, and the brazen

"On the right, and above me yet, the path entered a district of
volcanic rocks, gnarled, twisted, and contorted as with the
agonies of some mighty plague which in a forgotten past had
seized on the very bowels of the world and had contorted whole
mountains and laid waste vast forests and endless plains. Above,
the sun, growing hourly more cruel; ahead, more plague-twisted
rocks and the scars dancing like running water; and all around
the swooning stillness of the tropics.

"The night sounds of the jungle had ceased, giving place to the
ceaseless humming of insects. North, south, east, and west lay
that haze of heat, like a moving mantle clothing hills and
valleys. The sound of falling water remained perceptible.

"And now, gentlemen, I must relate a discovery which I had made
in the act of removing Vadi's clothing. Upon his right forearm
was branded a mark resembling the apparition which I had
witnessed in the night, namely, a little torch, or flambeau,
surmounted by a tongue of fire. Even in the light of the morning,
amid that oppressive stillness, I could scarcely believe in my
own safety, for that to Vadi the duty of assassinating me had
been assigned by this ever-watchful, secret organization, whose
stronghold I had dared to approach, was a fact beyond dispute.

"Since I seemed to be quite alone on the plateau, I could only
suppose that the issue had been regarded as definitely settled,
that no doubt had been entertained by Vadi's instructors
respecting his success. The plateau upon which I stood was one of
a series of giant steps, and on the west was a sheer descent to a
dense jungle, where banks of rotten vegetation, sun-dried upon
the top, lay heaped about the tree stems.

"Dragging the heavy body of Vadi to the brink of this precipice,
I toppled it over, swaying dizzily as I watched it crash down
into the poisonous undergrowth two hundred feet below.

"I made a rough cache, where I stored the bulk of my provisions;
and, selecting only such articles as I thought necessary for my
purpose, I set out again northward, guided by the sound of
falling water, and having my face turned toward the silver
pencillings in the blue sky, which marked the giant peaks of the
distant mountains.

"At midday the heat grew so great that a halt became imperative.
The path was still clearly discernible; and in a little cave
beside it, which afforded grateful shelter from the merciless
rays of the sun, I unfastened my bundle and prepared to take a
frugal lunch.

"I was so employed, gentlemen, when I heard the sound of
approaching footsteps on the path behind me--the path which I had
recently traversed.

"Hastily concealing my bundle, I slipped into some de nse
undergrowth by the entrance to the cave, and crouched there,
waiting and watching. I had not waited very long before a
yellow-robed mendicant passed by, carrying a bundle not unlike my
own, whereby I concluded that he had come some distance. There
was nothing remarkable in his appearance except the fact of his
travelling during the hottest part of the day. Therefore I did
not doubt that he was one of the members of the secret
organization and was bound for headquarters.

"I gave him half an hour's start and then resumed my march. If he
could travel beneath a noonday sun, so could I.

"In this fashion I presently came out upon a larger and higher
plateau, carpeted with a uniform, stunted undergrowth, and
extending, as flat as a table, to the very edge of a sheer
precipice, which rose from it to a height of three or four
hundred feet--gnarled, naked rock, showing no vestige of

"By this time the sound of falling water had become very loud,
and as I emerged from the gorge through which the path ran on to
this plateau I saw, on the further side of this tableland, the
yellow robe of the mendicant. He was walking straight for the
face of the precipice, and straight for the spot at which, from a
fissure in the rock, a little stream leapt out, to fall sheerly
ten or fifteen feet into a winding channel, along which it
bubbled away westward, doubtless to form a greater waterfall

"The mendicant was fully half a mile away from me, but in that
clear tropical air was plainly visible; and, fearing that he
might look around, I stepped back into the comparative shadow of
the gorge and watched.

"Gentlemen, I saw a strange thing. Placing his bundle upon his
head, he walked squarely into the face of the waterfall and


"'Quitting air, must pass through water.' The meaning of those
words became apparent enough. I stood at the foot of the
waterfall, looking up at the fissure from which it issued.

"Although the fact had been most artistically disguised, I could
not doubt that this fissure was artificial. A tunnel had been
hewn through the rock, and a mountain stream diverted into it.
Indeed, on close inspection, I saw that it was little more t han a
thin curtain of water, partly concealing what looked like the
entrance of a cave.

"A great deal of mist arose from it. But I could see that, beyond
a ducking, I had little to fear; and, stepping down into the bed
of the little stream which frothed and bubbled pleasantly about
my bare legs, I set my bundle on my head as the mendicant had
done, and plunged through the waterfall, into a place of
delicious coolness.

"A strange greenish light prevailed here and directly before me I
saw a flight of stone steps leading upward through a tunnel in
the rock. By the light of a pocket torch with which I had
provided myself, I began to ascend the steps. These, as I have
said, were hewn out of the solid rock, and as they numbered
something like seven hundred, the labour expended upon the making
of this extraordinary staircase must have been stupendous.

"At first the character of the surrounding tunnel suggested that
it was, in part at least, a natural cavern. But as I mounted
higher and higher, solid masonry appeared in places, some of it
displaying unusual carvings, of a character with which I was
quite unfamiliar. I concluded that it was very ancient.

"I should explain, gentlemen, that this ascending tunnel
zigzagged in a peculiar fashion, which may have been due to the
natural formation of the volcanic rock, or may have been part of
the design of the original builder. I had ascended more than five
hundred steps, and felt that a rest would shortly be necessary,
when I reached a sort of cavern, or interior platform, from which
seven corridors branched out like the spokes of a wheel. The top
of this place was lost in shadows, which the ray of my torch
failed to penetrate; and here I paused, setting down my bundle
and wondering what my next move should be.

"To the damp coolness of the lower stairs an oppressive heat had
now succeeded, and I became aware of a continuous roaring sound,
which I found myself unable to explain.

"Attached to a belt beneath my native dress I carried a Colt
revolver; and therefore, leaving my rifle and bundle in a corner
of the cavern, I selected one of these corridors more or less at
random, and set out to explore. This corridor proved to slope
very gently upward from the platform, and I could not fail to
notice that at every step the heat grew greater and greater. A
suffocating, sulphurous smell became perceptible also, and the
roaring sound grew almost deafening. It became possible to
discern the walls of the corridor ahead because of a sort of
eerie bluish light which had now become visible.

"Gentlemen, I don't say that I hesitated in a physical sense: I
went right on walking ahead. But a voice somewhere deep down
inside me was whispering that this was the road to hell.

"At a point where the heat and the smell were almost unendurable
the corridor was blocked by massive iron bars beyond which the
reflection of some gigantic fire danced upon the walls of a vast

"The heat was so great that my garments, saturated by the curt ain
of water through which I had passed, were now bone dry, and I
stood peering through those bars at a spectacle which will remain
with me to the merciful day of my death.

"A hundred feet beneath me was a lake of fire! That is the only
way I can describe it: a seething, bubbling lake of fire. And
above, where the roof of the cavern formed a natural cone, was a
square section formed of massive stone blocks, and quite
obviously the handiwork of man. The bars were too hot to touch,
and the heat was like that of a furnace, but while I stood,
peering first upward and then downward, a thing happened which I
almost hesitate to describe, for it sounds like an incident from
a nightmare.

"Heralded by a rumbling sound which was perceptible above the
roar of the fire below, the centre block in the roof slid open. A
tremendous draught of air swept along the passage in which I was
standing, and doubtless along other passages which opened upon
this hell-pit.

"As if conjured up by magic, a monstrous column of blue flame
arose, swept up scorchingly, and licked like the tongue of a
hungry dragon upon the roof of the cavern. Instantly the trap was
closed again; the tongue of fire dropped back into the lake from
which it had arisen on the draught of air.

"And right past me where I stood, rigid with horror, looking
through those bars, fell a white-robed figure--whether man or
woman I could not determine! Down, down into the fiery pit, a
hundred feet below!

"One long-drawn, dying shriek reached my ears.

"Of my return to the place at which I had left my bundle and
rifle I retain absolutely not one recollection. I was aroused
from a sort of stupor of horror by the sight of a faint light
moving across the platform ahead of me, as I was about to emerge
from the tunnel.

"It was the light of a lantern, carried by a man who might have
been the double of that yellow-robed mendicant who had first
unconsciously led me to this accursed place.

"I won't deny that, up to the moment of sighting h im, my one idea
had been to escape, to return, to quit this unholy spot. But now,
as I watched the bearer of the lantern cross the platform and
enter one of the seven corridors, that old, unquenchable thirst
for new experiences got me by the throat again.

"As the light of the lantern was swallowed up in the passage, I
found my bundle and rifle and set out to follow the man. Four
paces brought me to the foot of more steps. I walked barefooted,
frequently pausing to listen. There were many carvings upon the
walls, but I had no leisure to examine them.
"Contrary to my anticipations, however, there were no branches in
this zigzag staircase, which communicated directly with the top
of the lofty plateau. When presently I felt the fresh mountain
air upon my face, I wondered why I could perceive no light ahead
of me. Yet the reason was simple enough.

"Since I had passed through that strange watergate to the City of
Fire, the day had ended: it was night. And when, finding no
further steps ahead of me, I passed along a level, narrow
corridor for some ten paces and, looking upward, saw the stars, I
was astounded.

"The yellow-robed man had disappeared, and I stood alone, looking
down upon that secret city which I had come so far to see.

"I found myself standing in deep undergrowth, and, pressing this
gently aside, I saw a wonderful spectacle. Away to my left was a
great white marble building, which I judged to be a temple; and
forming a crescent before it was a miniature town, each
white-walled house surrounded by a garden. It was Damascus
reduced to fairy dimensions, a spectacle quite unforgettable.

"The fact which made the whole thing awesome and unreal was the
presence, along the top of the temple (which, like that of
Hatshepsu at Deir elBahari, seemed to be hewn out of the living
rock but was faced with white marble) of seven giant flambeaux,
each surmounted by a darting tongue of blue flame!

"Legend had it that this was the temple built by Zoroaster and
preserved intact by that wonderful secretiveness of the Orient
through the generations, by a cult who awaited the coming of
Zoroaster's successor, of that Fire-Tongue who was to redeem and
revolutionize the world.

"I was afraid to move too far from the mouth of the tun nel, but
nevertheless was anxious to obtain a good view of the little city
at my feet. Gingerly I moved farther forward and forward, ever
craning out for a glimpse of the buildings more immediately below
me, forgetful of the fact that I walked upon the brink of a

"Suddenly my outstretched foot failed to touch ground. I clutched
wildly at the bushes around me. Their roots were not firm in the
shallow soil, and, enveloped like some pagan god in a mass of
foliage, I toppled over the cliff and fell!"


"My awakening was as strange as anything which had befallen me. I
lay upon a silken bed in a pavilion which was furnished with
exquisite, if somewhat barbaric, taste.
"A silken shaded lamp hung upon a golden chain near to my couch,
but it was dimmed by the rosy light streaming in through the open
door--a light which I believed to be that of dawn. I ached in
every limb and felt weak and ill. There was a bandage about my
head, too, but this great physical weakness numbed my curiosity,
and I just lay still, looking out through the doorway into a
lovely garden. I could form no impression of what had happened,
and the ceaseless throbbing in my head rendered any attempt to do
so very painful.

"I was lying there, in this curious and apathetic state, when the
curtains draped in the doorway were pulled more widely aside and
a woman came in.

"Gentlemen, I will not endeavour to describe her, except to say
that she was so darkly lovely that I doubted the evidence of my
senses; tall and lithe, with the grace of some beautiful jungle

"When she saw that I was awake, she paused and lowered her head
in confusion. She wore a gossamer robe of sheeny golden silk,
and, standing there with the light of the dawn behind her, she
made a picture that I think would have driven a painter crazy.

"I am supposed to be an unimpressionable man, and perhaps it is
true; but there at that moment, as the glance of her dark eyes
met the wondering look in mine, I knew that my hour had come for
good or ill.

"This is not the time nor the place for personal reminiscences. I
am here for another purpose. One of those accidents which are
really due to the hand of fate had precipitated me into the
garden of the house of Naida, and she in her great compassion had
tended me and sheltered me, keeping my presence secret from those
who would have dealt with me in summary fashion, and, indeed, who
were actually on the look-out for my arrival.

"Yes, so Naida informed me. To my great surprise she spoke almost
perfect English, and that sort of understanding sprang up between
us immediately which, in the case of a man and a beautiful woman
thrown together as we were, can only terminate in one way.

"She was some sort of priestess of the temple which I had seen
from the top of the cliff. What else she was I very shortly

"In accordance with one of the many strange customs of the City
of Fire, her personal servants, or rather slaves, were blind
mutes! Gentlemen, I warned you that my story was tough. Doubtless
you are beginning to appreciate the fact that I spoke no more
than the truth.

"Naida, for such was her name, told me that the Brahmin, Vadi,
who had acted as my guide, was one of the followers of the
Prophet of Fire, to whom had been given the duty of intercepting
me. His failure to report within a certain time had resulted in
two of the priests of this strange cult being sent out to obtain
information. That these were the yellow-robed mendicants who had
passed me in the mountains, I did not doubt.

"Their reports, so Naida informed me, had led to a belief that
Vadi had perished with me; but as an extra measure of precaution,
that very night--indeed, shortly after I had passed that way--a
guard had been set upon the secret entrance. Therefore, even if
my strength had permitted, I should have been unable to return by
the way I had come.

"But indeed I was as weak as a child, and only to the presence of
much foliage upon the acclivity down which I had rolled, and to
the fact that I had fallen upon soft soil in a bed of flowers,
can I ascribe my having failed to break my neck.

"In this way, gentlemen, I entered upon a brief period of my life
at once more sweet and more bitter than any I had known. Next to
that strange, invisible prophet whose name was Fire-Tongue, Naida
held unquestioned sway in this secret city. Her house was
separated from the others, and she travelled to and from the
temple in a covered litter. To look upon her, as upon Fire-Tongue
himself, was death. Women, I learned, were eligible for admission
to this order, and these were initiated by Naida.

"As the days of my strange but delightful captivity wore on, I
learned more and more of the weird people who, unseen, surrounded
me. There were lodges of the Cult of Fire all over the East, all
having power to make initiates and some to pass disciples into
the higher grades. Those who aspired to the highest rank in the
order, however, were compelled to visit this secret city in the
Indian hills.

"Then at last I learned a secret which Naida had for long kept
back from me. These followers of the new Zoroaster were
polygamists, and she was the first or chief wife of the
mysterious personage known as Fire-Tongue. I gathered that others
had superseded her, and her lord and master rarely visited this
marble house set amid its extensive gardens.

"Her dignities remained, however, and no one had aspired to
dethrone her as high priestess of the temple. She evidently knew
all the secrets of the organization, and I gathered that she was
indispensable to the group who controlled it.

"Respecting Fire-Tongue himself, his origin, his appearance, she
was resolutely silent, a second Acte, faithful to the last. That
the ends of this cult were not only religious but political, she
did not deny, but upon this point she was very reticent. An
elaborate system of espionage was established throughout the
East, Near and Far, and death was the penalty of any breach of
"Respecting the tests to which candidates were put, she spoke
with more freedom. Those who, having reached the second grade,
aspired to the first, were submitted to three very severe ones,
to make trial of their courage, purity, and humility. Failure in
any of these trials resulted in instant death, and the final
test, the trial by fire, which took place in a subterranean
chamber of the great temple, resulted in a candidate whose
courage failed him being precipitated into that lake of flame
which I have already described--a dreadful form of death, which
by accident I had witnessed.

"Gentlemen, realizing what the existence of such an organization
meant, what a menace to the peace of the world must lie here,
what dreadful things were almost hourly happening about me at
behest of this invisible monster known as Fire-Tongue, I yet
confess--for I am here to speak the truth--that, although I had
now fully recovered my strength, I lingered on in a delicious
idleness, which you who hear me must find it hard to understand.

"I have the reputation of being a cold, hard man. So had Antony
before he met Cleopatra. But seven years ago, under the Indian
moon, I learned tolerance for the human weakness w hich forgets
the world for the smiles of a woman.

"It had to end. Sooner or later, discovery was inevitable. One
night I told Naida that I must go. Over the scene that followed I
will pass in silence. It needed all the strength of a fairly
straight, hard life to help me keep to my decision.

"She understood at last, and consented to release me. But there
were obstacles--big ones. The snow on the lower mountain slopes
had begun to melt, and the water-gate in the valley by which I
had entered was now impassable. As a result, I must use another
gate, which opened into a mountain path, but which was always
guarded. At first, on hearing this, I gave myself up for lost,
but Naida had a plan.

"Removing a bangle which she always wore, she showed me the
secret mark of Fire-Tongue branded upon the creamy skin.

"'I will put this mark upon your arm,' she said. 'In no other way
can you escape. I will teach you some of the passwords by which
the brethren know one another, and if you are ever questioned you
will say that you were admitted to the order by the Master of the
Bombay Lodge, news of whose death has just reached us.'

"'But,' said I, 'how can I hope to pass for an Oriental?'

"'It does not matter,' Naida replied. 'There are some who ar e not
Orientals among us!'

"Gentlemen, those words staggered me, opening up a possibility
which had seemed only shadowy before. But Naida, who had
tremendous strength of character, definitely refused to discuss
this aspect of the matter, merely assuring me that it was so.

"'Those who have successfully passed the ordeal of fire,' she
said, 'are put under a vow of silence for one month, and from
moon to moon must speak to no living creature. Therefore, once
you bear the mark of the Fiery Tongue, you may safely pass the
gate, except that there are certain signs which it is necessary
you should know. Afterward, if you should ever be in danger of
discovery anywhere in the East, you will remember the passwords,
which I shall teach you.'

"So I was branded with the mark of Fire-Tongue, and I spent my
last night with Naida learning from her lips the words by which
members of this order were enabled to recognize one another. In
vain I entreated Naida to accompany me. She would allow herself
to love and be loved; but the vows of this singular priesthood
were to her inviolable.

"She exacted an oath from me that I would never divulge anything
which I had seen or heard in the City of Fire. She urged that I
must leave India as quickly as possible. I had already learned
that this remote society was closely in touch with the affairs of
the outside world. And, because I knew I was leaving my heart
behind there in the Indian hills, I recognized that this dreadful
parting must be final.

"Therefore I scarcely heeded her when she assured me that, should
I ever be in danger because of what had happened, a message in
the Times of India would reach her. I never intended to insert
such a message, gentlemen. I knew that it would need all my
strength to close this door which I had opened.

"I will spare you and myself the details of our parting. I passed
out from the City of Fire in the darkest hour of the night,
through a long winding tunnel, half a mile in length. I had
protested to Naida that the secret mark might be painted upon my
arm and not branded, but she had assured me that the latter was a
necessity, and this now became evident; for, not only three times
was it subjected to scrutiny, but by the last of the guards,
posted near the outer end of the tunnel, it was tested with some
kind of solution.

"Silence and the salutation with the moistened finger tips,
together with the brand upon my arm, won me freedom from the
abode of Fire-Tongue.

"From a village situated upon one of the tributaries of the
Ganges I readily obtained a guide, to whom such silent,
yellow-robed figures as mine were evidently not unfamiliar; and,
crossing the east of Nepal, I entered Bengal, bearing a strange
secret. I found myself in an empty world--a world which had
nothing to offer me. For every step south took me farther from
all that made life worth living."

"The incidents of the next seven years do not concern you,
gentlemen. I had one aim in life--to forget. I earned an
unenviable reputation for foolhardy enterprises. Until this very
hour, no man has known why I did the things that I did do. From
the time that I left India until the moment when fate literally
threw me in the way of the late Sir Charles Abingdon, I had heard
nothing of the cult of Fire-Tongue; and in spite of Naida's
assurance that its membership was not confined to Orientals, I
had long ago supposed it to be a manifestation of local
fanaticism, having no political or international significance.

"Then, lunching with the late Sir Charles after my accident in
the Haymarket, he put to me a question which literally made me
hold my breath.

"'Do you know anything of the significance of the term
Fire-Tongue?' he asked.

"I am not accustomed to any display of feeling in public, and I
replied in what I think was an ordinary tone:

"'In what connection, Sir Charles?'

"'Well,' said he, watching me oddly, 'I know you have travelled
in India, and I wondered if you had ever come in contact with the
legend which prevails there, that a second Zoroaster has arisen,
to preach the doctrine of eternal fire.'

"'I have heard it,' I replied, guardedly.

"'I thought it possible,' continued Sir Charles, 'and I am
tempted to tell you of a curious experience which once befell me
during the time that I was a guest of my late friend Colonel
Banfield in Delhi. My reputation as an osteologist was not at
that time so fully established as it later became, but I already
had some reputation in this branch of surgery; and one evening a
very dignified Hindu gentleman sought an interview with me,
saying that a distinguished native noble, who was a guest of his,
had met with a serious accident, and offering me a fee equivalent
to nearly five hundred pounds to perform an operation which he
believed to be necessary.

"'I assured him that my services were at his disposal, and
blankly declined to accept so large a fee. He thereupon explained
that the circumstances were peculiar. His friend belonged to a
religious cult of an extremely high order. He would lose caste if
it became known that he had been attended by a Christian surgeon;
therefore my visit must be a secret one.
"'It made no difference,' I replied. 'I quite unde rstood; and he
might rely upon my discretion.

"'Accordingly I was driven in a car which was waiting to some
house upon the outskirts of the city and conducted to a room
where the patient had been carried. I saw him to be a singularly
handsome young man, apparently about twenty-three years of age.
His features were flawless, and he possessed light ivory skin and
wavy jet-black hair. His eyes, which were very dark and
almond-shaped, had a strange and arresting beauty. But there was
something effeminate about him which repelled me, I cannot say in
what way; nor did I approve of the presence of many bowls of
hyacinths in the room.

"'However, I performed the operation, which, although slight,
demanded some skill, and with the nature of which I will not
trouble you. Intense anxiety was manifested by the young man's
attendants, and one of these, a strikingly beautiful woman,
insisted on remaining while the operation was performed.

"'She seemed more especially to concern herself with preserving
intact a lock of the young man's jet-black hair, which was
brushed in rather an odd manner across his ivory forehead.
Naturally enough, this circumstance excited my curiosity and,
distracting the woman's attention for a moment--I asked her to
bring me something from a table at the opposite side of the
room--I lightly raised this wayward lock and immediately replaced
it again.

"'Do you know what it concealed, Mr. Brinn?'

"I assured him that I did not.

"'A mark, apparently natural, resembling a torch surmounted by a
tongue of fire!'

"I was amazed, gentlemen, by Sir Charles's story. He was given
his fee and driven back to his quarters. But that he had succeeded
where I had failed, that he had actually looked upon Fire -Tongue
in person, I could not doubt. I learned from this, too, that the
Prophet of Fire did not always remain in his mountain stronghold,
for Delhi is a long way from the Secret City.

"Strange though it must appear, at this time I failed to account
for Sir Charles confiding this thing to me. Later, I realized
that he must have seen the mark on my arm, although he never
referred to it.

"Well, the past leapt out at me, as you see, and worse was to
come. The death of Sir Charles Abingdon told me what I hated to
know: that Fire-Tongue was in England!

"I moved at once. I inserted in the Times the prearranged
message, hardly daring to hope that it would come to the eye of
Naida; but it did! She visited me. And I learned that not only
Sir Charles Abingdon, but another, knew of the mark which I bore!

"I was summoned to appear before the Prophet of fire!

"Gentlemen, what I saw and how I succeeded in finding out the
location of his abode are matters that can wait. The important
things are these: first, I learned why Sir Charles Abingdon had
been done to death!

"The unwelcome attentions of the man known as Ormuz Khan led Sir
Charles to seek an interview with him. I may say here and now
that Ormuz Khan is Fire-Tongue! Oh! it's a tough statement--but I
can prove it. Sir Charles practically forced his way into this
man's presence--and immediately recognized his mysterious patient
of years ago!

"He accused him of having set spies upon his daughter's
movements--an accusation which was true--and forbade him to see
her again. From that hour the fate of Sir Charles was sealed.
What he knew, the world must never know. He had recorded, in a
private paper, all that he had learned. This paper was stolen
from his bureau--and its contents led to my being summoned to the
house of Fire-Tongue! It also spurred the organization to renewed
efforts, for it revealed the fact that Sir Charles contemplated
confiding the story to others.

"What were the intentions of the man Ormuz in regard to Miss
Abingdon, I don't know. His entourage all left England some days
ago--with three exceptions. I believe him to have been capable of
almost anything. He was desperate. He knew that Ormuz Khan must
finally and definitely disappear. It is just possible that he
meant Miss Abingdon to disappear along with him!

"However, that danger is past. Mrs. McMurdoch, who to -day
accompanied her to his house, was drugged by these past -masters
in the use of poisons, and left unconscious in a cottage a few
miles from Hillside, the abode of Ormuz.

"You will have observed, gentlemen, that I am somewhat damaged.
However, it was worth it! That the organization of the
Fire-Worshippers is destroyed I am not prepared to assert. But I
made a discovery to-day which untied my hands. Hearing, I shall
never know how, that Naida had had a secret interview with me,
Fire-Tongue visited upon her the penalty paid seven years ago by
my informant in Nagpur, by Sir Charles Abingdon, recently, by God
alone knows how many scores--hundreds--in the history of this
damnable group.

"I found her lying on a silken divan in the deserted house, her
hands clasped over a little white flower like an odontoglossum,
which lay on her breast. It was the flower of sleep--and she was
"My seven years' silence was ended. One thing I could do for the
world: remove Fire-Tongue--and do it with my own hands!

"Gentlemen, at the angle where the high road from Upper Claybury
joins the Dover Road is the Merton Cottage Hospital. Mr. Harley
is awaiting us there. He is less damaged than I am. A native
chauffeur, whose name I don't know, is lying insensible in one of
the beds--and in another is a dead man, unrecognizable, except
for a birthmark resembling a torch on his forehead, his head
crushed and his neck broken.

"That dead man is Fire-Tongue. I should like, Mr. Commissioner,
to sign the statement."

End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Fire-Tongue, by Sax Rohmer