The dream detective: being some account of the methods of Moris Klaw (6 page)

"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 seances, 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!"

"Ehr" 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)

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 KJaw! 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

<(

THE POTSHERD OF ANUBIS 63

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!"

/ 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 j "for you cannot say how you came into possession of the sherd! Professor Sheraton was in a similar forked stick—and that is where / 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 instru-

ment 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!"

CASE OF THE CRUSADER'S AX 67

"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 Kiaw?"

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 mer

"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 Cumaean 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.

CASE OF THE CRUSADER'S AX 69

"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!"