3. Shadows
"Had you reason to suspect any cardiac trouble, Doctor McMurdoch?" asked Harley.
Doctor McMurdoch, a local practitioner who had been a friend of Sir Charles Abingdon, shook his head slowly. He was a tall, preternaturally thin Scotsman, clean-shaven, with shaggy dark brows and a most gloomy expression in his deep-set eyes. While 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.
"I had never actually detected anything of the kind," replied the 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 on suspected endocarditis. Acute. I take it," raising his shaggy brows interrogatively, "that nothing had occurred to excite Sir Charles?"
"On the contrary," replied Harley, "he was highly distressed about some family trouble, the nature of which he was about to confide to me when this sudden illness seized him."
He stared hard at Doctor McMurdoch, wondering how much he might hope to learn from him respecting the affairs of Sir Charles. It seemed almost impertinent at that hour to seek to pry into the dead man's private life.
To the quiet, book-lined apartment stole now and again little significant sounds which told of the tragedy in the household. Sometimes when a distant door was opened, it would be the sobs of a weeping woman, for the poor old housekeeper had been quite prostrated by the blow. Or ghostly movements would become audible from the room immediately over the library--the room to which the 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 details of the scene above. Then, to spur Harley to action, came 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 nowHarley 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 illness, mused Harley, all the more strange in the case of a man supposedly in robust health--it almost seemed like the working of a malignant will. For the revelation, whatever its nature, had 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.
"Was he consulting you professionally, Mr. Harley?" asked the physician.
"He was," replied Harley, continuing to stare fascinatedly at the photograph on the mantelpiece. "I am informed," said he, abruptly, "that Miss Abingdon is out of town?"
Doctor McMurdoch nodded in his slow, gloomy fashion. "She is staying in Devonshire with poor Abingdon's sister," he answered. "I am wondering how we are going to break the news to her."
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 McMurdoch," he said, "if I venture to ask you one or two rather personal questions respecting Miss Abingdon?"
Doctor McMurdoch lowered his shaggy brows and looked gloomily at the speaker. "Mr. Harley," he replied, "I know you by repute for a man of integrity. But before I answer your questions will you answer one of mine?"
"Certainly."
"Then my question is this: Does not your interest cease with the death of your client?"
"Doctor McMurdoch," said Harley, sternly, "you no doubt believe yourself to be acting as a friend of this bereaved family. You regard me, perhaps, as a Paul Pry prompted by idle curiosity. On 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.
"If these fears were well grounded, the danger is not removed, but merely increased by the death of Miss Abingdon's natural protector. I regret, sir, that I approached you for information, since you have misjudged my motive. But far from my interest having ceased, it has now as I see the matter become a sacred duty to learn what it was that Sir Charles apprehended. This duty, Doctor McMurdoch, I propose to fulfil with or without your assistance."
"Oh," said Doctor McMurdoch, gloomily, "I'm afraid I've offended you. But I meant well, Mr. Harley." A faint trace of human emotion showed itself in his deep voice.
"Charley Abingdon and I were students together in Edinburgh," he explained. "I was mayhap a little strange."
His apology was so evidently sincere that Harley relented at once. "Please say no more, Doctor McMurdoch," he responded. "I fully appreciate your feelings in the matter. At such a time a stranger can only be an intruder; but"--he fixed his keen eyes upon the physician--"there is more underlying all this than you suspect or could readily believe. You will live to know that I have spoken the truth."
"I know it now," declared the Scotsman, solemnly. "Abingdon was always eccentric, but he didn't know the meaning of fear."
"Once that may have been true," replied Harley. "But a great fear was upon him when he came to me, Doctor McMurdoch, and if it is humanly possible I am going to discover its cause."
"Go ahead," said Doctor McMurdoch and, turning to the side table, he poured out two liberal portions of whiskey. "If there's anything I can do to help, count me at your service. You tell me he had fears about little Phil?"
"He had," answered Harley, "and it is maddening to think that he died before he could acquaint me with their nature. But I have hopes that you can help me in this. For instance"--again he fixed 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 slowly shook his head. "I haven't an idea in the world," he declared. "A patient, perhaps?"
"Possibly," said Harley, conscious of some disappointment; "yet from the way he spoke of him I scarcely think that he was a patient. Surely Sir Charles, having resided so long in India, numbered several Orientals among his acquaintances if not among his friends?"
"None ever came to his home," replied Doctor McMurdoch. "He had all the Anglo-Indian's prejudice against men of colour." He rested his massive chin in his hand and stared down reflectively at the carpet.
"Then you have no suggestion to offer in regard to this person?"
"None. Did he tell you nothing further about him?”
"Unfortunately, nothing. In the next place, Doctor McMurdoch, are you aware of any difference of opinion which had arisen latterly between Sir Charles and his daughter?"
"Difference of opinion!" replied Doctor McMur doch, 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!"
Again Harley found himself at a deadlock, and it was with scanty hope of success that he put his third question to the gloomy Scot. "Was Sir Charles a friend of Mr. Nicol Brinn?" he asked.
"Nicol Brinn?" echoed the physician. He looked perplexed.
"You mean the American millionaire? I believe they were acquainted. Abingdon knew most of the extraordinary people in London; and if half one hears is true Nicol Brinn is as mad as a hatter. But they were not in any sense friends as far as I know." He was watching Harley curiously. "Why do you ask that question?"
"I will tell you in a moment," said Harley, rapidly, "but I have one more question to put to you first. Does the term Fire-Tongue 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 joking," he said, dourly. "But if your third question surprised me, I must say that your fourth sounds simply daft."
"It must," agreed Harley, and his manner was almost fierce; "but when I tell you why I ask these two questions--and I only do so on the understand ing that my words are to be treated in the strictest confidence--you may regard the matter in a new light. 'Nicol Brinn' and 'Fire-Tongue' were the last words which Sir Charles Abingdon uttered.”
"What!" cried Doctor McMurdoch, displaying a sudden surprising energy.
"What?"
"I solemnly assure you," declared Harley, "that such is the case. Benson, the butler, also overheard them."
Doctor McMurdoch relapsed once more into gloom, gazing at the whiskey in the glass which he held in his hand and slowly shaking his head. "Poor old Charley Abingdon," he murmured. "It's plain to me, Mr. Harley, that his mind was wandering. May not we find here an explanation, too, of this idea of his that some danger overhung Phil? You didn't chance to notice, I suppose, whether he had a temperature?"
"I did not," replied Harley, smiling slightly. But the smile 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:
"In view of the fact," he said, suddenly, "that Sir Charles clearly apprehended an attempt upon his<