Part 4

It was, perhaps, a quarter to ten before Zeda had matters arranged to his satisfaction, and so dark, by reason of the tall Japanese screen which stood before the open windows, that I could see neither Zeda, on my left, nor Lesty, who sat on my right. Halesowen was a dim silhouette against the patch of light cast by the oil reading lamp beside the vase, which stood the whole length of the room away. I was conscious of a suppressed excitement, which I am sure was shared by my companions.

I heard a distant clock striking the half hour, and then the three quarters; but still nothing had occurred. A motor car drove around from the road and stopped somewhere at the outer end of the drive. I wondered, idly, if it were that of the surgeon who lived at Number 10. After that, everything was very quiet, and I was expecting to hear the hour strike, and straining my ears to catch the sound of the first chime, when the rocking and cracking of the table began. This was much more violent than hitherto, and Zeda’s gruff tones came softly: “Whatever shall happen, do not remove your hands from the table!”

He ceased speaking, and the rocking motions, together with the rapping and cracking that had sounded from all about us, also ceased, with disconcerting suddenness. A silence fell, so short in duration as to be scarcely appreciable; for it was almost instantly broken by an unexpected sound.

It was a woman’s voice, very low and clear, and it seemed to mutter something in a weird, rising cadence, with a high note at the end of every third bar or so, and this over and over again--an eerie thing, vaguely like a Gregorian chant.

“Triumph!” whispered Zeda. “The ‘Hymn of the Souls Who Are Passing.’”

His speech seemed to disturb the singer, but only for a moment. The Hymn was continued.

This singular performance was proving too much for my nerves; at each recurrence of the quiet, clear note on the fourth beat of the third bar, a cold shudder ran down my spine. Then, as the very monotony of the thing was beginning to grow appalling, I suddenly became aware of a slim, white figure standing beside the vase!

The chant stopped, and I could hear nothing but the nervous breathing of my companions. Seated as they were, I doubted whether Halesowen or Lesty could see this apparition, but I was facing directly toward her--for it was a woman. I could see every line of her figure--the curves of her throat and arms and shoulders, the dull, metallic gleaming of her clustering hair. As she extended her hand toward the light, I distinctly saw the large green stone set in a ring on her index finger. She must be very beautiful, I thought, and I was peering through the gloom in a vain endeavour to see her more clearly, when there came a disconcerting crash--and utter darkness! The table whereat we were seated was overturned, and I found myself capsized from my chair!

“Hold him!” yelled the voice of Lesty. “Hold him, Halesowen--Clifford!”

A door banged loudly.

“Confound it! I’m on the floor!”--from Halesowen.

I shouted for someone to turn up the light, at the same time scrambling through the gloom with that intent. After severely damaging my shins against the intervening furniture, I found the switch. It would not work!

“It’s cut off!” I cried. “Strike a match, somebody.”

“Haven’t got any!” said Lesty.

“Zeda has mine!” responded Halesowen. “Open the door.”

“Locked!” was Lesty’s next report.

“Break it down!” shouted Halesowen, hurling aside the Japanese screen. “_The potsherd is gone!_”

Lesty applied his shoulder to the oak--once--twice--thrice. Then all together we attacked it, and it flew open with a splintering crash.

“Round to his flat!” panted Halesowen, running downstairs.

Out on to the drive we sprinted, into the next entrance and up to the first landing. Knocking and ringing proved ineffectual, and the door was too strong to be burst open. We stood in dismayed silence, staring at one another.

“Off your balcony, on to his and through the French window!” said Lesty, suddenly; so back we all ran again.

I had never before realized how easy it was to get from one balcony to another, until I saw Lesty swing himself across. Halesowen and I followed in a trice, and we all blundered into the dark room through the open window and made for the electric switch beside the mantelpiece. We turned on the light. The room was unfurnished!

“Good Lord!” breathed Halesowen, hurrying into the next.

That, too, was quite bare, as were all the rest! The outer door was locked.

“While we were fooling at that concert, he had every scrap of stuff removed!” I said. “He probably had the lot on hire from a big furnishing firm--curios and all. I remember noticing that his curiosities were of a very ordinary character, considering his extensive travels and the nature of his studies.”

“No doubt whatever,” agreed Lesty. “His burglary proved a failure (and, I think, must have been interrupted), though I am compelled to admire the neat manner in which he handled the very delicate situation that resulted. His more recent and elaborate device has turned out all that could be desired--from Zeda’s point of view!”

“But how has he got away?” said Halesowen, in bewilderment.

“Motor waiting at the corner,” replied Lesty, promptly. “Heard it come up. When the reading lamp was capsized, and whoever had crept from his balcony to yours and in behind the screen had returned the same way--with the vase!--Zeda overturned the table and pushed you two men backward in your chairs. Then, before I could reach him, he bolted out and locked the door after him. For, having lulled my suspicions by two practically uneventful séances, he cunningly placed himself nearest to the door and me farthest away. He probably removed the key when he went out for the box and placed it outside in the lock when he returned. His accomplice had run straight through Zeda’s flat and out to the waiting car, and there he joined her. They may be thirty miles away by now!”

Being unable to open the door, we perforce returned to Halesowen’s balcony by the same way that we had come, our friend bewailing his lost potsherd and exclaiming: “The cunning, cunning scamp!”

“I knew he had some deep game in hand,” said Lesty; “but I hadn’t bargained for this move. Of course, I had noticed the dodge of borrowing all our matches, but I didn’t grasp its importance until too late. It never occurred to me that he’d disconnected the electric light (which he probably did sometime in the night, by the way). I was a fool not to realize it, too, when he insisted on our using only the oil lamp. Then, again, I was slow not to go straight through the window and into Zeda’s flat that way. It is just possible I might have caught the lady songster if I had done that in the first place. The possibility, however, had not been overlooked, since she took the precaution to lock the door after her.”

“A clever rogue!” I declared. “But wasn’t the first attempt--for I suppose we must classify the mysterious arm under that head--more than a trifle indiscreet?”

“No doubt,” agreed Lesty. “But we didn’t know, then, that Zeda was in London, and the flat was still unfurnished. Also, they may have thought Halesowen was in bed; or the woman (whom he has so cleverly kept out of sight) may have exceeded her instructions in attempting to touch the potsherd while any one remained in the room.”

“But,” said Halesowen, slowly, “we don’t know that there _was_ any woman!”

“Eh?” queried Lesty.

“Did you see her?”

“No.”

“I did. She was lovely, very lovely--for a woman!”

Lesty stared curiously. “You surprise me,” he commented, drily.

“Zeda was a strange man,” pursued the other, “and there were certainly things occurred as we sat round that table that need a lot of explaining.”

“Very ordinary three-and-six-a-head phenomena!” was the reply. “Merely a blind.”

“Then what was the reason of his burning desire to secure my potsherd, if not to complete the vase?”

“Do you mean to tell me,” asked Lesty, “that you are going to credit that story about the priestess--_now_, after he has shown his hand? Do you wish to suggest that he was aided by a spirit?”

“Then why was he so keen to get the thing?” persisted Halesowen.

Lesty looked at him, looked at me, shrugged his shoulders and began to load his pipe. Having done so, he sat smoking and staring at the brilliant moon.

“Well?” inquired our host.

“Give it up!” admitted Lesty.

(_Conclusion of Mr. Clifford’s Account_)

V

One of my visits to the Wapping curio shop of Moris Klaw was made in company with Mr. Halesowen, who, with the others mentioned in the foregoing narrative, I subsequently had met.

Somewhere amid the misty gloom of this place, where loot of a hundred ages, of every spot from pole to pole, veils its identity in the darkness, sits a large gray parrot. Faint perfumes and scuffling sounds tell of hidden animal life near to the visitor; but the parrot proclaims itself stridently:

“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! The devil’s come for you!”

That signal brings Moris Klaw from his hiding place. He shuffles into the shop, a figure appropriate to its surroundings. Imagine a tall, stooping man, enveloped in a very faded blue dressing gown. His skin is but a half-shade lighter than that of a Chinaman; his hair, his shaggy brows, his scanty beard, defy one to name their colour. He wears pince-nez.

When upon this particular occasion I introduced my companion, and Moris Klaw acknowledged the introduction in his rumbling voice, I saw Halesowen stare.

Klaw produced a scent spray from somewhere and sprayed verbena upon his high yellow brow.

“It is very stuffy--in this shop!” he explained. “Isis! Isis! Bring for my visitors some iced drinks!”

He invoked a goddess, and a goddess appeared: a brilliantly beautiful brunette, with delightfully curved scarlet lips and flashing eyes whose fire the gloom could not dim.

“Good God!” cried Halesowen--and fell back.

“My daughter Isis,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “This is Mr. Halesowen, from whom we rescue the Egyptian potsherd!”

“_What!_”

Halesowen leant forward across the counter.

“You recognize my daughter?” continued Moris Klaw; “but not Doctor Zeda, eh? Or only his poor old voice? You gave us great trouble, Mr. Halesowen. Once, you came in just as Isis, who has climbed on to your balcony, is about to take the potsherd----”

“There was no one in the room!”

“_I_ was in the room!” interrupted the girl, coolly. “I was draped in black from head to foot, and I slipped behind the window hangings, unseen, whilst you fumbled with your lamp!”

“It was indiscreet,” continued Moris Klaw, “and made it harder for me; because, afterward, you lock up the treasure and my search is unavailing. Also, I am interrupted. Pah! I am clumsy! I waste time! But, remember, I offered to buy it!”

“Suppose,” said Halesowen, slowly, “I give you both in charge?”

“You cannot,” was the placid reply; “for you cannot say how you came into possession of the sherd! Professor Sheraton was in a similar forked stick--and that is where _I_ come in!”

“What! you were acting for him?”

“Certainly! I happen to be in Egypt at the time, and he is a friend of mine. Your thief, Ali, left a small piece of the pot behind, and I am entrusted to make it complete!”

“You have succeeded!” said Halesowen, grimly, all the time furtively watching the beautiful Isis.

“Yes,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “I am the instrument of poetic justice. Isis, those cool beverages. Let us drink to poetic justice!”

He sprayed his ample brow with verbena.

In conclusion, you may ask if the value of the potsherd justified the elaborate and costly mode of its recovery.

I reply: Upon what does the present fame of Professor Sheraton rest? His “New Key to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.” Upon what is that work founded? Upon the hieroglyphics of the Potsherd of Anubis, which (no questions being asked of so distinguished a savant) was recently acquired from the Professor by the nation at a cost of £15,000!

THIRD EPISODE. CASE OF THE CRUSADER’S AX

I

I have heard people speak of Moris Klaw’s failures. So far as my information bears me, he never experienced any. “What,” I have been asked, “of the Cresping murder case? He certainly failed there.”

Respecting this question of his failure or success in the sensational case which first acquainted the entire country with the existence of Crespie Hall, and that brought the old-world village of Cresping into such unwonted prominence, I shall now invite your opinion.

The investigation--the crime having baffled the local men--ultimately was placed in the hands of Detective-Inspector Grimsby; and through Grimsby I was brought into close touch with the matter. I had met Grimsby during the course of the mysterious happenings at the Menzies Museum, and at that time I also had made the acquaintance of Moris Klaw.

Thus, as I sat over my breakfast one morning reading an account of the Cresping murder case, I was no more than moderately surprised to see Inspector Grimsby walk into my rooms.

He declined my offer of a really good Egyptian cigarette.

“Thanks all the same,” he said; “but there’s only one smoke I can think on.”

With that he lighted one of the cheroots of which he smoked an incredible quantity, and got up from his chair, restlessly.

“I’ve just run up from Cresping by the early train,” he began, abruptly. “You’ve heard all about the murder, of course?”

I pointed to my newspaper, conspicuous upon the front page of which was:

“THE MURDER AT CRESPIE HALL”

“Ah, yes,” he said, absently. “Well, I’ve been sent down and, to tell you the white and unsullied truth, I’m in a knot!”

I passed him a cup of coffee.

“What are the difficulties?” I asked.

“There’s only one,” he rapped back: “who did it!”

“It looks to me a very clear case against Ryder, the ex-butler.”

“So it did to me,” he agreed, “until I got down there! I’d got a warrant in my pocket all ready. Then I began to have doubts!”

“What do you propose to do?”

Grimsby hesitated.

“Well,” he replied, “it wouldn’t do any good to make a mistake in a murder case; so what I should _like_ to do would be to get another opinion--not official, of course!”

I glanced across at him.

“Mr. Moris Klaw?”

He nodded.

“Exactly!”

“You’ve changed your opinion respecting him?”

“Mr. Searles, his investigation of the Menzies Museum outrages completely stood me on my head! I’m not joking. I’d always thought him a crank, and in some ways I think so still; but at seeing through a brick wall I’d put all I’ve got on Moris Klaw any day!”

“But surely you are wasting time by coming to me?”

“No, I’m not,” said Grimsby, confidently. “Moris Klaw, for all his retiring habits, is not a man that wants his light hidden under a bushel! He knows that you are collecting material about his methods, and he’s more likely to move for you than for me.”

I saw through Grimsby’s plan. He wanted me to invite Moris Klaw to look into the Crespie murder case, in order that he (Grimsby) might reap any official benefit accruing without loss of self-esteem! I laughed.

“All right, Grimsby!” I said. “Since he has made no move, voluntarily, it may be that the case does not interest him; but we can try.”

Accordingly, having consulted an A.B.C., we presently entrained for Wapping, and as a laggard sun began to show up the dinginess and the dirtiness of that locality, sought out a certain shop, whose locale I shall no more closely describe than in saying that it is close to Wapping Old Stairs.

One turns down a narrow court, with a blank wall on the right and a nailed-up doorway and boarded-up window on the left. Through the cracks of the latter boarding, the inquiring visitor may catch a glimpse, beyond a cavernous place which once was some kind of warehouse, of Old Thames tiding muddily.

The court is a cul de sac. The shop of Moris Klaw occupies the blind end. Some broken marble pedestals stand upon the footway, among seatless chairs, dilapidated chests, and a litter of books, stuffed birds, cameos, inkstands, swords, lamps, and other unclassifiable rubbish. A black doorway yawns amid the litter.

Imagine Inspector Grimsby and me as entering into this singular Cumæan cave.

Our eyes at first failed to penetrate the gloom. All about moved rustling suggestions of animal activity. The indescribable odour of old furniture assailed our nostrils together with an equally indescribable smell of avian, reptilian, and rodent life.

“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! The devil’s come for you!”

Thus the scraping voice of the parrot. A door opened, admitting a little more light and Moris Klaw. The latter was fully dressed; whereby I mean that he wore his dilapidated caped black cloak, his black silk muffler and that rarest relic of his unsavoury reliquary, the flat-topped brown bowler.

In that inadequate light his vellum face looked older, his shaggy brows, his meagre beard, more toneless, than ever. Through the gold-rimmed pince-nez he peered for a moment, downward from his great height. He removed the bowler.

“Good morning, Mr. Searles! Good morning, Inspector Grimsby! I am just from Paris. It is so good of you to call so early to tell me all about the poor murdered man of Cresping! Good morning! Good morning!”

II

Moris Klaw’s sanctum is certainly one of the most remarkable apartments in London. It is lined with shelves, which contain what I believe to be a unique library of works dealing with criminology--from Moris Klaw’s point of view. Strange relics are there, too; and all of them have histories. A neat desk, with flowers in a silver vase, and a revolving chair standing upon a fine tiger skin are the other notable items of furniture.

The contrast on entering was startling. Moris Klaw placed his hat upon the desk, and from it took out the scent spray without which he never travels. He played the contents upon his high, yellow forehead--filling the air with the refreshing odour of verbena.

“That shop!” he said, “it smell very strong this morning. It is not so much the canaries as the rats!”

“I trust,” began Grimsby, respectfully, “that Miss Klaw is quite well?”

“Isis will presently be here to say for herself,” was the reply. “And now--this bad business of Cresping. It seems I am just back in time, but, ah! it is a fortnight old!”

Grimsby cleared his throat. “You will have read----”

“Ah, my friend!” Moris Klaw held up a long, tapering white hand. “As though you do not know that I never confuse my poor brain with those foolish papers. No, I have not read, my friend!”

“Oh!” said Grimsby, something taken aback. “Then I shall have to tell you the family story----”

Isis Klaw entered.

From her small hat, with its flamingo-like plume, to her dainty shoes, she was redolent of the Rue de la Paix. She wore an amazingly daring toilette; I can only term it a study in flame tones. A less beautiful woman could never have essayed such a scheme; but this superb brunette, with her great flashing eyes and taunting smile, had the lithe carriage of a Cleopatra, the indescribable diablerie of a _ghaziyeh_.

Inspector Grimsby greeted her with embarrassed admiration. Greetings over--

“We must hurry, Father!” said the girl.

Moris Klaw reclaimed his archaic bowler.

“Mr. Searles and Inspector Grimsby will perhaps be joining us?” he suggested.

“Where?” began Grimsby.

“Where but by the 9:5 train for Uxley!” said Klaw. “Where but from Uxley to Cresping! Do I waste time, then--I?”

“You have been retained?” suggested Grimsby.

“Ah, no!” was the reply. “But I shall receive my fee, nevertheless!”

At the end of the court a cab was waiting. Outside the cavernous door a ramshackle man with a rosy nose bowed respectfully to the proprietor.

“You hear me, William,” said Moris Klaw, to this derelict. “You are to sell nothing--unless it is the washstand! Forget not to change the canaries’ water. The Indian corn is for the white rats. If there is no mouse in the trap by eight o’clock, give the owl a herring. And keep from the drink; it will be your ruin, William!”

We entered the cab. My last impression of the place was derived from the invisible parrot, who gave us Godspeed with:

“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! the devil’s come for you!”

As we drove stationward, Grimsby, his eyes rarely leaving the piquant face of Isis Klaw, outlined the history of the Crespie family to the silent Moris. In brief it was this:

The late Sir Richard Crespie, having become involved in serious monetary difficulties, employed such methods of drowning his sorrows as were far from conducive to domestic felicity; and after a certain unusually violent outburst the home was broken up. His son, Roland, was the first to go; and he took little with him but his mother’s blessing and his father’s curses. Then Lady Crespie went away to her sister in London, only surviving her departure from the Hall by two years. Alone, and deserted, first by son and then by wife, the debauched old baronet continued on his course of heavy drinking for some years longer. The servants left him, one by one, so that in the end, save for faithful old Ryder, the butler, whose family had served the Crespies for time immemorial, he had the huge mansion to himself. Apoplexy closed his unfortunate career; and, since nothing had been heard of him for years, it was generally supposed that the son had met his death in Africa, whither he had gone on leaving home.

With the passing of Sir Richard came Mr. Isaac Heidelberger, and he wasted no time in impressing his noxious personality upon the folks of Cresping. He was a German Jew, large and oily, with huge coarse features and a little black moustache that had been assiduously trained in a futile attempt to hide a mouth that had well befitted Nero. A week after Sir Richard’s burial, Mr. Heidelberger took possession of the Hall.

The new occupant brought with him one Heimer, a kind of confidential clerk, and, old Ryder the butler having been sent about his business, the two Jewish gentlemen proceeded to make themselves comfortable. The nature of their business was soon public property; the grand old Hall was to be turned into a “country mansion for paying guests.”

Very strained relations existed between the big Jew and the ex-butler, who, having a little money saved, had settled down in Cresping. One night, at the Goblets--the historic village inn--Heidelberger having swaggered into the place, there arose an open quarrel. Said Ryder:

“Sir Richard, with all his faults, was once a good English gentleman, and, but for such as you, a good English gentleman he might have died!”

It was exactly a week later that the tragedy occurred.

“We come to it now, eh?” interrupted Moris Klaw at this point. “So--we also come to the station! I will ask you to reserve us a first-class carriage!”

Grimsby made arrangements to that end. And, as the train moved out of the station, resumed his story.

“What I gather is this,” he said.

[I condense his statement and append it in my own words.]