Zeda, on the following day, entertained us to luncheon in town,
followed by an afternoon concert, for which he had procured seats,
being interested, or professing to be, in a certain fiddler who
figured largely in the programme. We had arranged that Halesowen and
the doctor should dine with us in the evening, before we went to the
former’s flat for the séance, and we accordingly returned direct to
our rooms and chatted over the doings of the day until dinner was
served. Zeda surpassed himself in brilliant conversation. He must, I
remember thinking, have led a strange and eventful life.
At about nine o’clock, we walked over, in the dark, to our friend’s
flat, where we had to grope for and light an oil lamp which he had,
Zeda declaring that something in the atmosphere was propitious and
that the electric light would tend to disturb these favourable
conditions. He seemed to be strung to high tension, perhaps with
expectancy, but was not so preoccupied as to forget his black cigars,
one of which he lighted as he was about to go out for the iron box. He
borrowed my matches for the purpose and forgot to return them.
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!”