“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!”