by Sax Rohmer
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 him.
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?”
“Beautiful!”
No man could have recognized the voice of Nicol Brinn. Suddenly 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 me.”
“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 here.”
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 death.”
“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 country?”
“Oh,” moaned Naida, “what can I do, what can I do?”
“Give me permission to speak and stay here. Leave the rest to me.”
“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 ag
ain.”
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 England.”
“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 her.
“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 frightened!”
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.
CHAPTER XVI. NICOL BRINN GOES OUT
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 investigator.
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 happenings.
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 premises.”
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 blustered.
“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 playing 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 way.”
“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 si
mple 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 American.
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.
