“I know it,” said Brinn, shortly.

He shot out one long arm and grasped Harley’s shoulder as in a vice.  “I’m counted a wealthy man,” he continued, “but I’d give every cent I possess to see ‘paid’ put to the bill of a certain person.  Listen.  You don’t think I was in any way concerned in the death of Sir Charles Abingdon?  It isn’t thinkable.  But you do think I’m in possession of facts which would help you find out who is.  You’re right.”

“Good God!” cried Harley.  “Yet you remain silent!”

“Not so loud—­not so loud!” implored Brinn, repeating that odd, almost furtive glance around.  “Mr. Harley—­you know me.  You’ve heard of me and now you’ve met me.  You know my place in the world.  Do you believe me when I say that from this moment onward I don’t trust my own servants?  Nor my own friends?” He removed 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!”

Nicol Brinn crossed to a bureau, unlocked it, and while Harley watched him curiously, sought among a number of press cuttings.  Presently he found the cutting for which he was looking.  “This was said,” he explained, handing the slip to Harley, “at the Players’ Club in New York, after a big dinner in pre-dry days.  It was said in confidence.  But some disguised reporter had got in and it came out in print next morning.  Read it.”

Paul Harley accepted the cutting and read the following: 

Nicol Brinn’s secret ambitions
millionaire sportsman who wants to shoot
Niagara!

Mr. Nicol Brinn of Cincinnati, who is at present in New York, opened his heart to members of the Players’ Club last night.  Our prominent citizen, responding to a toast, “the distinguished visitor,” said: 

“I’d like to live through months of midnight frozen in among the polar ice; I’d like to cross Africa from east to west and get lost in the middle.  I’d like to have a Montana sheriff’s posse on my heels for horse stealing, and I’ve prayed to be wrecked on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe to see if I am man enough to live it out.  I want to stand my trial for murder and defend my own case, and I want to be found by the eunuchs in the harem of the Shah.  I want to dive for pearls and scale the Matterhorn.  I want to know where the tunnel leads to—­the tunnel down under the Great Pyramid of Gizeh—­and I’d love to shoot Niagara Falls in a barrel.”

“It sounds characteristic,” murmured Harley, laying the slip on the coffee table.

“It’s true!” declared Brinn.  “I said it and I meant it.  I’m a glutton for danger, Mr. Harley, and I’m going to tell you why.  Something happened to me seven years ago—­”

“In India?”

“In India.  Correct.  Something happened to me, sir, which just took the sunshine out of life.  At the time I didn’t know all it meant.  I’ve learned since.  For seven years I have been flirting with death and hoping to fall!”