We entered the small room from which the Blue Rajah had been spirited
away. Grimsby, who was badly puzzled, was evidently glad of Klaw’s
coöperation. Moris Klaw’s letter of warning, leading to the request
for Moris Klaw’s attendance, had enabled the Scotland Yard man to
summon that keen intellect to his aid without compromising his
professional reputation. He would lose no credit that might accrue if
the gem were recovered and, in short, was congratulating himself upon
a diplomatic move.
“It’s beyond me,” he said, “how the thing was got out of the room.
With this door shut, the window fastened, and the other door
double-locked, as it always is, practically the place is a box.”
Moris Klaw, from its hiding place in the lining of his hat, took out
the scent spray and squirted verbena upon his face.
“A box--yes,” he rumbled; “and so stuffy. No air.”
“There’s no ventilation,” explained Grimsby. “That square hole over
the door is intended for ventilation, but as there’s no corresponding
aperture over the window or elsewhere it’s useless. Anyway, it only
opens on the passage.”
“Ah. You searched them all quite thoroughly?”
“Certainly; like Kaffirs. But I didn’t expect to find it.”
“Blessed is he who expecteth little. Isis, my child, there is someone
knocking.”
Isis opened the door communicating with Mr. Anderson’s office, and a
boy entered carrying a tray with a coffee pot and cup upon it.
“Good,” said Moris Klaw. “I shall not sleep in this room, Mr. Searles.
It is difficult to sleep in the morning and I cannot wait for night. I
shall sit here at this table for one hour with my mind a perfect
blank. I shall think of nothing. That is a great art, Mr. Searles--to
think of nothing. Few people but ascetics can do it. Try it for
yourself, and you will find that thinking of trying not to think is
the nearest you will get to it! I shall expose my mind, a sensitive
blank, to the etheric waves created here by mental emotion.
“I shall secure many alien impressions of horror at finding the Blue
Rajah to be missing. That is unavoidable. But I hope, amongst all
these, to find that other thought-thing--the fear of the robber at the
critical moment of his crime! That should be a cogent and forceful
thought--keener and therefore stronger to survive, because a thought
of danger but of gain, than the thoughts of loss with which this
atmosphere is laden.”
He stood up, removing his caped coat and revealing the shabby tweed
suit which he wore. A big French knot of black silk looked grotesquely
out of place beneath his yellow face with its edging of toneless
beard.
“Isis,” he said, “lay my cloak carefully upon that chair by the
window. I will sit there.”
Grimsby stepped forward to assist.
“No, no!” said Isis, but smiled enchantingly. “No hand but mine must
touch it until my father has secured his impression!”
She laid the coat upon the chair, completely covering it; and Moris
Klaw sat down.
“Another cup of coffee,” he said; and his daughter poured one out and
handed it to him. “This is Java coffee and truly not coffee at all.
There is no coffee but _Mocha_--a thing you English will never learn.
Return in an hour, gentlemen. Isis, ask that no disturbing sound is
allowed within or without. That Committee, it can go home. None of it
has the diamond.”
“And the other gentlemen?” asked Grimsby. “They’ll be anxious to get
about their business, too. There’s Sir John Carron from the India
Office and Mr. Gautami Chinje--the Gaekwar’s representative.”
“Of course--certainly,” mused Moris Klaw. “But, of course, too, they
will all be anxious to know immediately the result of my inquiries.
Listen--Mr. Anderson will remain; he can represent the city. Mr.
Chinje, you will perhaps ask him to remain, to represent the
Gaekwar--the vendor; and Sir John Carron, he might be so good. Make
those arrangements, Mr. Grimsby, and let nothing again disturb me.”
We left him, returning to the outer office.
Sir John Carron expressed himself willing to remain.
“If I may use your telephone for a moment, Mr. Anderson,” he said, “I
can put off an engagement.”
Mr. Chinje had no other engagement, and Mr. Anderson’s duties had
detained him in any event. There was some general, but subdued,
conversation before the rest of the party left; but finally Sir John,
Chinje, Grimsby, Isis Klaw, and myself found ourselves in a waiting
room on the opposite side of the corridor, provided with refreshments,
and the gentlemen of the party with cigars, whilst the hospitable and
deeply anxious Messrs. Anderson piled the table with periodical
literature for our entertainment.
It was a curious interlude, which I shall always remember.
Sir John Carron, a tall, bronzed military man, middle-aged and
perfectly groomed, surveyed Isis Klaw through his monocle with
undisguised admiration. She bore this scrutiny with the perfect
composure which was hers, and presently engaged the admiring baronet
in some conversation about India, in which Mr. Chinje presently
joined. Chinje had all the quiet self-possession of a high-caste
Hindu, and his dark handsome face exhibited no signs of annoyance when
Sir John adopted that tone of breezy patronage characteristic of some
Anglo-Indian officers who find themselves in the company of a
well-bred native. Grimsby, with recognition of his social inferiority
written large upon him, smoked, for the most part, in silence--Isis
having given him permission to light up. Seeing his covert glances at
this intimate trio, I ultimately succeeded in making the conversation
a general one, thereby earning the Scotland Yard man’s evident
gratitude.
“You know, Inspector Grimsby,” said Sir John, “I never was searched
before to-day! But, by Jove, you did it very efficiently! I was
dreadfully tempted to strike you when you calmly turned out my purse!
Your method was far more workmanlike than Sir Michael Cayley’s a few
minutes earlier. He forgot to look in my watch case, but you didn’t!”
Grimsby smiled.
“There’s more in a simple thing like searching a man than most people
take into consideration,” he replied. “I’ve known a Kaffir in the
mines who--excuse me, Miss Klaw--wore no more than Adam, to walk off
with stones worth my year’s wages.”
“I’m prepared to accept your assurance, Inspector,” said Sir John,
“that none of us had the diamond about our persons.”
“My father has accepted it,” added Isis Klaw; “and that is
conclusive.”
Which brought us face to face again with the amazing problem that we
were there to solve. How, by any known natural law, had the Blue Rajah
been taken out of the room? None of us could conjecture. That the
detective was hopelessly mystified, his inaction, awaiting the result
of Moris Klaw’s séance, was sufficient proof. I wondered if the
Commissioner would have approved of his passive attitude and entire
dependence upon the efforts of an amateur, yet failed to perceive what
other he could adopt. One thing was certain: if the diamond was
recovered, its recovery would be recorded among Detective-Inspector
Grimsby’s successful cases! And there he sat placidly smoking one of
Mr. Anderson’s habanas.
At the expiration of the hour specified, Isis Klaw rose and walked
across to Mr. Anderson’s office. Mr. Anderson, his ruddy
face--typically that of a lowland Scot--a shade paler than was its
wont, I fancy, was glancing from his watch to the clock.
Isis knocked on the inner door, opened it, and entered. Sir John
Carron was watching with intense interest. Mr. Chinje met my glance
and smiled a little sceptically.
Moris Klaw came out with his caped coat on and carrying his bowler in
his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have secured a mental negative, somewhat
foggy, owing to those other thought forms with which the atmosphere is
laden. But I have identified him--the thief!”
A sound like a gasp repressed came from somewhere immediately behind
me. I turned. Mr. Anderson and Mr. Anderson, junior, stood at my
elbow; close by were Mr. Chinje, Grimsby, and Sir John Carron.
“Who snorts?” rumbled Moris Klaw, peering through his pince-nez.
“Not I,” said Sir John, staring about him.
We all, in turn, denied having uttered the sound.
“Then there is in this office a ghost,” declared Klaw, “or a liar!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Klaw,” began Mr. Anderson, with some heat.
Moris Klaw raised his hand. His daughter’s magnificent eyes blazed
defiance at us all.
“No anger,” implored the rumbling voice. “No anger. Anger is a misuse
of the emotions. There are present eight persons here. Someone
snorted. Eight persons deny the snort. It is a ghost or a liar. Am I
evident to you?”
“Your logic is irrefutable,” admitted the younger Mr. Anderson,
glancing from face to face. “It pains me to have to admit that you are
right!”
In turn, I examined the faces of those present. Grimsby was a man
witless with wonder. Both the Andersons were embarrassed and angry.
Isis Klaw was scornfully triumphant; her father was, as ever,
nonchalant. Sir John Carron looked ill at ease; Mr. Chinje appeared to
have changed his opinion of the eccentric investigator and now studied
him with the calm interest of the cultured Oriental.
“I shall now make you laugh,” said Moris Klaw. “I shall tell you what
he was thinking of at the psychological instant--that mysterious
thief. He was thinking of two things. One was a very pretty, fair
young lady, and the other was a funny thing. He was thinking of
throwing twelve peanuts into a parrot’s cage!”
V
There are speeches so entirely unexpected that their effect is
unappreciable until some little time after the utterance. This speech
of Moris Klaw’s was of that description. For some moments no one
seemed to grasp exactly what he had said, simple though his words had
been. Then, it was borne home to us--that grotesque declaration; and I
think I have never seen men more amazed.
Could he be jesting?
“Mr. Klaw----” began Sir John Carron. But--
“One moment, Sir John,” interrupted Klaw. “Let all remain here for one
moment. I shall return.”
Whilst we stared, like so many fools, he shuffled from the office with
his awkward gait. During his brief absence no one spoke. We were
restrained, undoubtedly, by the presence of Isis Klaw, who, one hand
upon her hip and with the other swinging her big ermine muff, smiled
at us with a sort of pitying scorn for our stupidity.
Moris Klaw returned.
“Let me see,” he rumbled, reflectively, “have you, Sir John Carron or
Mr. Chinje, a specimen of the handwriting of the Gaekwar of Nizam?”
Chinje and Sir John stared.
“At the office--possibly,” replied Sir John.
“I have my instructions, signed by him,” said Mr. Chinje. “But not
here.”
“At your hotel, yes?”
“Yes,” replied Chinje, shortly.
He gave me the impression that he resented Moris Klaw’s catechizing as
that of a fool and an incompetent meddler with affairs of great
importance.
“Then, gentlemen,” said Klaw, “we must adjourn to examine that
signature.”
“Really,” the younger Mr. Anderson burst out, “I must protest against
this! You will pardon me, Mr. Klaw; I believe you to be sincere in
your efforts on our behalf, but such an expedition can be no more than
a wild-goose chase! What can the Gaekwar’s signature have to do with
the theft of the diamond?”
“I will tell you something, my feverish friend,” said Moris Klaw,
slowly. “The Blue Rajah is not on these premises. It is gone! It went
before I came. If it is ever to come back you will put on your hat and
accompany me to examine the signature to Mr. Chinje’s instructions.”
“I must add my protest to Mr. Anderson’s,” remarked Chinje. “This is
mere waste of time.”
“Mr. Grimsby,” resumed Klaw, placidly, “it is a case to be hushed up,
this. There must be no arrests!”
“Eh?” cried Grimsby.
“Sir John Carron will ring up the Commissioner and he will say that
Detective-Inspector Grimsby has traced the Blue Rajah, which was
stolen, but that, for reasons of state, Detective-Inspector Grimsby
will make a confidential report and no arrest!”
“Really----” began Sir John.
“Mr. Klaw,” cried Anderson, interrupting excitedly. “You are jesting
with men who are faced by a desperate position! I ask you, as man to
man, if you know who stole the Blue Rajah and where it is?”
“I reply,” rumbled Moris Klaw, “that I suspect who stole it, that I am
doubtful how it was stolen, and that when I have examined the
Gaekwar’s signature I may know where it is!”
His reply had a tone of finality quite unanswerable. His attitude was
that of a stone wall; and he had, too, something of the rugged
strength of such a wall--of a Roman wall, commanding respect.
Sir John got into communication with the Commissioner, as desired by
Klaw, and we all left the office and went down in the lift to the
hall.
“Two cabs will be needful,” said Moris Klaw; and two cabs were
summoned.
Sir John Carron, the Andersons, and Moris Klaw entered one; Isis Klaw,
Grimsby, Chinje, and I the other.
“The Hotel Astoria,” directed Chinje.
Throughout the drive to the Strand, Isis chatted to Grimsby, to his
great delight. Mr. Chinje contented himself with monosyllabic replies
to my occasional observations. He seemed to be disgusted with the
manner in which the inquiry was being conducted. When the two cabs
drove into the courtyard of the hotel, the one in which I was seated
followed the other. Mr. Chinje, on my left, descended first, and Moris
Klaw also descended first from the cab in front. As he did so he
stumbled on the step and clutched at Chinje for support. Isis leapt
forward to his assistance.
“Ah,” growled Klaw, hobbling painfully, and resting one hand upon
Chinje’s shoulder and the other upon his daughter’s. “That foolish
ankle of mine! How unfortunate! An accident, Mr. Chinje, which I met
with in Egypt. I fell quite twenty feet in the shaft of a tomb and
broke my ankle. At the least strain, I suffer yet.”
“Allow me, Mr. Chinje,” said Grimsby, stepping forward.
“No, no!” rumbled Klaw. “If you will hand me my hat which I have
dropped, and see that my verbena has not fallen out--thank you--Mr.
Chinje and Isis will be so good as to walk with me to the lift. A few
moments’ rest in Mr. Chinje’s apartments will restore me.”
This arrangement accordingly was adopted, and we presently came to the
rooms occupied by the Gaekwar’s representative, upon the fourth floor
of the hotel. At the door, Mr. Chinje asked me to take his place
whilst he found his key.
I did so and Chinje opened the door. To my great surprise he entered
first. To my greater surprise, Moris Klaw, scorning my assistance and
apparently forgetting his injury, rapidly followed him in. The rest of
us flocked behind, possessed with a sense of something impending. We
little knew _what_ impended.
One thing, as I entered the little sitting room, struck my vision with
a sensation almost of physical shock. It was a large, empty parrot
cage standing on the table!
I had an impression that Chinje dashed forward in a vain attempt to
conceal the cage ere Moris Klaw entered. I saw, as one sees figures in
a dream, a pretty, fair-haired girl in the room. Then the Hindu had
leapt to an inner door--and was gone!
“Quick!” cried Klaw, in a loud voice. “The door! The door!”
He brushed the girl aside with a sweep of his arm and hurled himself
against the locked door.
“Mr. Grimsby! Mr. Searles! Someone! Help with this door. Isis! hold
her back, this foolish girl!”
The inner meaning of the scene was a mystery to us all, but the
urgency of Moris Klaw’s instructions brooked no denial. With a shrill
scream the girl threw herself upon him, but Isis, exhibiting
unsuspected strength, drew her away.
Then Sir John Carron joined Klaw at the door and they applied their
combined weights to the task of forcing it open.
Once they put their shoulders to it; twice--and there was a sound of
tearing woodwork; a third time--and it flew open, almost precipitating
them both into the room beyond. Hard on the din of the opening rang
the crack of a pistol shot. A wisp of smoke came floating out.
“Ah, just God!” said Moris Klaw, hoarsely, “we are too late!”
And, at his words, with a leap like that of a wild thing, the fair
girl broke from Isis, and passing us all, entered the room beyond.
Awed and fearful, we followed and looked upon a pitiful scene.
Gautami Chinje lay dead upon the floor, a revolver yet between his
nerveless fingers and a red spot in his temple. Beside him knelt the
girl, plucking with both hands at her lower lip, her face as white as
paper and her eyes glaring insanely at the distorted features.
“Dearest,” she kept whispering, in a listless way, “my dearest--what
is the matter? I have the diamond--I have it in my bag. What is it, my
dearest?”
We got her away at last.
“He had only been in London six months,” Moris Klaw rumbled in my ear,
“and you see, she adored him--helped him to steal. It is wonderful,
snake-like, the power of fascination some Hindus have over women--and
always over blondes, Mr. Searles, always blondes. It is a
psychological problem.”
So ended the case of the Blue Rajah robbery, one of the most brief in
the annals of Moris Klaw. The great diamond we found in the girl’s
handbag, wrapped in a curious little rubber covering, apparently made
to fit it.
“You see,” explained Moris Klaw, later, to his wondering audience,
“this girl--I have yet to find out who she is--was perhaps married to
Mr. Chinje. He would, of course, have deserted her directly he
returned to India. But here at the Astoria she was known as Mrs.
Chinje. Who would have been the losers by the robbery? The insurance
company, if I do not mistake the case. For the Gaekwar, through his
representative, Chinje, had the diamond insured for all the time it
was his property and in England, and the Committee had it insured from
the time it became their property. It had become their property. The
Gaekwar would have got his check. He gets it now; it is in Chinje’s
pocket-case. The city would have lost its Blue Rajah, and the
insurance company would have paid the city for the loss!
“The next office along the corridor from Mr. Anderson’s is the Central
London Electric Lighting Company. Many consumers call. Mrs. Chinje was
not suspected of any felonious purpose when she was seen in that
corridor--and she was seen by a clerk and by an engineer. After my
mental negative had told me of a pretty young lady of whom the thief
thinks at the moment of his theft, I went to inquire--you recall?--if
such a one had been seen near the office.
“From the first my suspicions are with Chinje. The emotions have each
a note, distinct, like the notes of a piano, though only audible to
the trained mind. Both Isis and myself detect from Chinje the note of
_fear_. I arrange, then, that he remains. My talk of examining the
Gaekwar’s writing is a ruse. It is Chinje’s apartment and the fair
lady I expect to find there that I am anxious to see.
“Then, in spite that he is the most cool of us all, I see that he
suspects me and I have to hold him fast; for, if he could have got
first to his room and hidden the parrot cage, where had been our
evidence? Indeed, only that I have the power to secure the astral
negative, there had been no evidence at all. There is a third
accomplice--him who howled in the courtyard; but I fear, as he so
cleverly vanished, we shall never know his name.
“And how was it done, and why did this someone howl?”
Moris Klaw paused and looked around. We awaited his next words in
tense silence.
“He howled because Chinje had looked out from the window (which,
though hidden, the howler was watching) and made him some signal. The
signal meant: ‘The Blue Rajah has been placed upon the table--_howl!_’
“The one below obeyed, and the Committee, like foolish sheep--yes,
gentlemen, like no-headed cattle things!--flocked to the window. But
Chinje did not flock with them! Like a deft-handed conjurer he was at
the table, the diamond was in the little rubber purse held ready, and
Mrs. Chinje, with her large handbag open, was waiting outside the
door, in the corridor, like some new kind of wicket-keeper. Chinje
tossed the diamond through the little square ventilator!
“He had been practising for weeks--ever since he knew that the
Committee would meet in that room--tossing peanuts into the square
opening of a parrot cage, placed at the same height from the floor as
the ventilator over Mr. Anderson’s doorway! He had practised until he
could do it twelve times without missing. He had nerves like piano
wires, yet he was a deadly anxious man; and he knew that a woman
cannot catch!
“But she caught--or, if she dropped it, no one saw her pick it up.
“Gentlemen, these Hindus are very clever, but talking of their
cleverness makes one very thirsty. I think I heard Mr. Anderson make
some cooling speech about a bottle of wine!”
SIXTH EPISODE.
CASE OF THE WHISPERING POPLARS
I
One afternoon Moris Klaw walked into my office and announced that
“owing to alterations” he had temporarily suspended business at the
Wapping emporium, and thus had found time to give me a call. I always
welcomed a chat with that extraordinary man, and although I could
conceive of no really useful “alteration” to his unsavoury
establishment other than that of setting fire to it, I made no
inquiries, but placed an easy chair for him and offered a cigar.
Moris Klaw removed his caped overcoat and dropped it upon the floor.
Upon this sartorial wreckage he disposed his flat-topped brown bowler
and from it extracted the inevitable scent spray. He sprayed his
dome-like brow and bedewed his toneless beard with verbena.
“So refreshing,” he explained; “a custom of the Romans, Mr. Searles.
It is a very warm day.”