“Await me, gentlemen,” rumbled Klaw; “I descend for the laughter!”
He stepped into the opening.
“One,” he counted, “two--three--four--five--” his voice came up to us
from the depths--“_six!_”
We heard him ascending. Walking into the library he placed upon the
table beside Sir James a very large and up-to-date gramophone!
“The laughter!” he explained, simply. “That night, my friends, when
first I slept at Grange, I secured, among a host of other dreadful
negatives, the negative of one who lurked in a secret hiding place. I
saw him come creeping from the chimney corner, bearing a great mace
which I recognized for one that had hung in the hall! Almost, the
Science of the Mind betrayed me; for I mistook him for a thought-form!
But the mind of Isis is _en rapport_ with the mind of her poor old
father. In her dreams she saw my peril, and she it was who, screaming,
saved me!--saved me from the murderer with the mace!”
Sir James made no sign. Moris Klaw continued:
“I gathered, then, that the one who sometimes lurked in the Jacobite
hiding place and who, somehow, made the demon laughter, and the other
phenomena, sought _one_ end. It was to cause you to leave Grange and
to live in Friars House! Beyond so far, my science could not show me.
I assisted, therefore, the project of the lurker; and came myself,
too, in order to watch, my friend, to guard and to spy!
“His gramophone I found, examined, and replaced. It had a clockwork
attachment, very ingenious, which both started and stopped it; there
was little or no scraping. To-night, from his room, unknown to him, I
removed the instrument from its case, which lay hidden at the bottom
of his trunk. Yes! I stole his key! I am the old fox! Why did he bring
it here? I cannot reply. Perhaps he meant again to use it; his future
projects are dark to me, but their object is all too light.”
Sir James groaned.
“Old Clem!” he whispered, “and how I trusted him!”
“He did not quite believe in my science,” resumed Moris Klaw, “but he
did not know that, hidden, I slept almost beside him as he sat,
planning, in this very room! From his own bad mind I secured my second
negative; and it showed me the death trap of some bad old son of
Mother Church! At Grange there was but the Jacobite hiding place, but
here was the devilry of feudal times! I returned to London. Why? To
learn if my suspicions were well founded. Yes! You may or may not be
aware; but if you die childless, the wicked Clement inherits Grange!”
“I knew that,” whispered Sir James.
“Ah! you knew? _So._ I returned to here, for, even at that time, I
suspected that your _accidental_ death was the object of removal! Then
I secured it, my second negative. Biding my time, I explored that
death-smelling place. Its wicked machinery had been _freshly oiled!_
Ah! he knew its secrets well, the old house that he hoped to inherit!
“One night, all innocent, as you sat here, with other guests, he would
have blundered upon that doorway! And _you_, the host, would have led
the search party! But I saw that he feared to move whilst I remained,
and so I played the ghost upon him with his own spook!”
Sir James Leyland looked up. His bronzed face was transformed with
emotion.
“Mr. Klaw,” he said, huskily, “why did you lay so much emphasis upon
the words, ‘the seventh step’?”
Moris Klaw shrugged, replying simply:
“Because _there is no seventh step--only the mouth of a well!_”
TENTH EPISODE.
CASE OF THE VEIL OF ISIS
I
I have made no attempt, in these chronicles, to arrange the cases of
my remarkable friend, Moris Klaw, in sections. Yet, as has recently
been pointed out to me, they seem naturally to fall into two orders.
There were those in which he appeared in the rôle of criminal
investigator, and in which he was usually associated with Inspector
Grimsby. There was another class of inquiry in which the criminal
element was lacking: mysteries which never came under the notice of
New Scotland Yard.
Since Moris Klaw’s methods were, if not supernatural, at any rate
supernormal, I have been asked if he ever, to my knowledge, inquired
into a case which proved insusceptible of a natural explanation--which
fell strictly within the province of the occult.
To that I answer that I am aware of several; but I have refrained from
including them because readers of these papers would be unlikely to
appreciate the nature of Klaw’s investigations outside the sphere of
ordinary natural laws. Those who are curious upon the point cannot do
better than consult the remarkable work by Moris Klaw entitled,
“Psychic Angles.”
But there was one case with which I found myself concerned that I am
disposed to include, for it fell between the provinces of the natural
and supernatural in such a way that it might, with equal legitimacy,
be included under either head. On the whole, I am disposed to bracket
it with the case of the headless mummies.
I will take leave to introduce you, then, to the company which met at
Otter Brearley’s house one night in August.
“This is most truly amazing,” Moris Klaw was saying; “and I am
indebted to my good friend Searles”--he inclined his sparsely covered
head in my direction--“for the opportunity to be one of you. It is a
séance? Yes and no. But there is a mummy in it--and those mummies are
so instructive!”
He extracted the scent spray from his pocket and refreshed his yellow
brow with verbena.
“How to be regretted that my daughter is in Paris,” he continued, his
rumbling voice echoing queerly about the room. “She loves them like a
mother--those mummies! Ah, Mr. Brearley, this will cement your great
reputation!”
Otter Brearley shook his head.
“I am not yet prepared to make it public property,” he declared,
slowly. “No one, outside the present circle, knows of my discovery. I
do not wish it to go farther--at present.”
He glanced around the table, his prominent blue eyes passing from
myself to Moris Klaw and from Klaw to the clean-cut dark face of
Doctor Fairbank. The latter, scarce heeding his host’s last words, sat
watching how the shaded light played, tenderly, amid the soft billows
of Ailsa Brearley’s wonderful hair.
“Shall you make it the subject of a paper?” he asked suddenly.
“My dear Doctor Fairbank!” rumbled Moris Klaw, solemnly, “if you had
been paying attention to our good friend you would have heard him say
that he was not prepared, at present, to make public his wonderful
discovery.”
“Sorry!” said Fairbank, turning to Brearley. “But if it is not to be
made public I don’t altogether follow the idea. What _do_ you intend,
Brearley?”
“I intend to experiment,” answered Brearley.
“In what way?” I asked.
“In every way possible!”
Doctor Fairbank sat back in his chair and looked thoughtful.
“Rather a comprehensive scheme?”
Brearley toyed with the bundle of notes under his hand.
“I have already,” he said, “exhaustively examined seven of the
possibilities; the eighth, and--I believe, the last--remains to be
considered.”
“Listen now to me, Mr. Brearley,” said Moris Klaw, wagging a long
finger. “I am here, the old curious, and find myself in delightful
company. But until this evening I know nothing of your work except
that I have read all your books. For me you will be so good as to
outline all the points--yes?”
Otter Brearley mutely sought permission of the company, and turned the
leaves of his manuscript. All men have an innate love of “talking
shop,” but few can make such talk of general interest. Brearley was an
exception in this respect. He loved to talk of Egypt, of the Pharaohs,
of the temples, of the priesthood and its mysteries; but others loved
to hear him. That made all the difference.
“The discovery,” he now began, “upon which I have blundered--for pure
accident, alone, led me to it--assumes its great importance by reason
of the absolute mystery surrounding certain phases of Egyptian
worship. In the old days, Fairbank, you will recall that it was my
supreme ambition to learn the secrets of Isis-worship as practised in
early Egyptian times. Save for impostors, and legitimate imaginative
writers, no one has yet lifted the veil of Isis. That mystical
ceremony by which a priest was consecrated to the goddess, or made an
arch adept, was thought to be hopelessly lost, or, by others, to be a
myth devised by the priesthood to awe the ignorant masses. In fact, we
know little of the entire religion but its outward form. Of that
occult lore so widely attributed to its votaries we know
nothing--absolutely nothing! By we, I mean students in general. I,
individually, have made a step, if not a stride, into that holy of
holies!”
“Mind you don’t lose yourself!” said Fairbank, lightly.
But, professionally, he was displeased with Brearley’s drawn face and
with the feverish brightness of his eyes. So much was plain for all to
see. In the eyes of Ailsa Brearley, so like, yet so unlike, her
brother’s, he read understanding of his displeasure, I think, together
with a pathetic appeal.
Brearley waved his long white hand carelessly.
“Rest assured of that, Doctor!” he replied. “The labyrinth in which I
find myself is intricate, I readily admit; but all my steps have been
well considered. To return, Mr. Klaw”--addressing the latter--“I have
secured the mummy of one of those arch adepts! That he was one is
proved by the papyrus, presumably in his own writing, which lay upon
his breast! I unwrapped the mummy in Egypt, where it now reposes; but
the writing I brought back with me and have recently deciphered. A
glance had showed me that it was not the usual excerpts from the ‘Book
of the Dead.’ Six months’ labour has proved it to be a detailed
account of his initiation into the inner mysteries!”
“Is such a papyrus unique?” I asked.
“Unique!” cried Moris Klaw. “Name of a little blue man! It is
priceless!”
“But why,” I pursued, “should this priest, alone among the many who
must have been so initiated, have left an account of the ceremony?”
“It was forbidden to divulge any part, any word, of it, Searles!” said
Brearley. “Departure from this law was visited with fearful
punishments in this world and dire penalties in the next. Khamus, for
so this priest was named, well knew this. But some reason which, I
fear, can never be known, prompted him to write the papyrus. It is
probable, if not certain, that no eye but his, and mine, has read what
is written there.”
A silence of a few seconds followed his words.
“Yes,” rumbled Klaw, presently; “it is undoubtedly a discovery of
extraordinary importance, this. You agree, my friend?”