which he had believed to hang over his life. He spoke slowly, deliberately, choosing 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 discussed—'
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 out—'
'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.'
Chapter 7 CONFESSIONS
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 Persian?'
'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 objected.'
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 impression.'
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
