by Sax Rohmer
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 Dr. 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, afterwards, 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 AXE
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!”
“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 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, ink-stands, swords, lamps, and other unclassifiable rubbish. A black doorway yawns amid the litter.
Imagine Inspector Grimsby and I as entering into this singular Cumean 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-trimmed pince-nez he peered for a moment, downwards 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! Goodmorning! Good-morning!”
II
Moris Klaw’s sanctum is certainly one of the most remarkable apartments in London. It is lined with shelves, which contain what I believe to be a unique library
of works dealing with criminology — from Moris Klaw’s point of view. Strange relics are there, too; and all of them have histories. A neat desk, with flowers in a silver vase, and a revolving chair standing upon a fine tiger-skin are the other notable items of furniture.
The contrast on entering was startling. Moris Klaw placed his hat upon the desk, and from it took out the scent-spray without which he never travels. He played the contents upon his high, yellow forehead — filling the air with the refreshing odour of verbena.
“That shop!” he said, “it smell very strong this morning. It is not so much the canaries as the rats!”
“I trust,” began Grimsby, respectfully, “that Miss Klaw is quite well?”
“Isis will presently be here to say for herself,” was the reply. “And now — this bad business of Cresping. It seems I am just back in time, but, ah! it is a fortnight old!”
Grimsby cleared his throat. “You will have read—”
“Ah, my friend!” Moris Klaw held up a long, tapering, white hand. “As though you do not know that I never confuse my poor brain with those foolish papers. No, I have not read, my friend!”
“Oh!” said Grimsby, something taken aback. “Then I shall have to tell you the family history—”
Isis Klaw entered.
From her small hat, with its flamingo-like plume, to her dainty shoes, she was redolent of the Rue de la Paix. She wore an amazingly daring toilette; I can only term it a study in flame-tones. A less beautiful woman could never have essayed such a scheme; but this superb brunette, with her great flashing eyes and taunting smile had the lithe carriage of a Cleopatra, the indescribable diablerie of a ghaziyeh.
Inspector Grimsby greeted her with embarrassed admiration. Greetings over —
“We must hurry, father!” said the girl.
Moris Klaw reclaimed his archaic bowler.
“Mr. Searles and Inspector Grimsby will perhaps be joining us?” he suggested.
“Where?” began Grimsby.
“Where but by the 9.5 train for Uxley!” said Klaw. “Where but from Uxley to Cresping! Do I waste time, then — I?”
“You have been retained?” suggested Grimsby.
“Ah, no!” was the reply. “But I shall receive my fee, nevertheless!”
At the end of the court a cab was waiting. Outside the cavernous door a ramshackle man with a rosy nose bowed respectfully to the proprietor.
“You hear me, William,” said Moris Klaw, to this derelict. “You are to sell nothing — unless it is the washstand! Forget not to change the canaries’ water. The Indian corn is for the white rats. If there is no mouse in the trap by eight o’clock, give the owl a herring. And keep from the drink; it will be your ruin, William!”
We entered the cab. My last impression of the place was derived from the invisible parrot, who gave us God-speed with —
“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! the devil’s come for you!”
As we drove stationward, Grimsby, his eyes rarely leaving the piquant face of Isis Klaw, outlined the history of the Crespie family to the silent Moris. In brief it was this —
The late Sir Richard Crespie, having become involved in serious monetary difficulties, employed such methods of drowning his sorrows as were far from conducive to domestic felicity; and after a certain unusually violent outburst the home was broken up. His son, Roland, was the first to go; and he took little with him but his mother’s blessing and his father’s curses. Then Lady Crespie went away to her sister in London, only surviving her departure from the Hall by two years. Alone, and deserted, first by son and then by wife, the debauched old baronet continued on his course of heavy drinking for some years longer. The servants left him, one by one, so that in the end, save for faithful old Ryder, the butler, whose family had served the Crespies for time immemorial, he had the huge mansion to himself. Apoplexy closed his unfortunate career; and, since nothing had been heard of him for years, it was generally supposed that the son had met his death in Africa, whence he had gone on leaving home.
With the passing of Sir Richard came Mr. Isaac Heidelberger, and he wasted no time in impressing his noxious personality upon the folks of Cresping. He was a German Jew, large and oily, with huge coarse features and a little black moustache that had been assiduously trained in a futile attempt to hide a mouth that had well befitted Nero. A week after Sir Richard’s burial, Mr. Heidelberger took possession of the Hall.
The new occupant brought with him one Heimer, a kind of confidential clerk, and, old Ryder the butler having been sent about his business, the two Jewish gentlemen proceeded to make themselves comfortable. The nature of their business was soon public property: the grand old Hall was to be turned into a “country mansion for paying guests.”
Very strained relations existed between the big Jew and the ex-butler, who, having a little money saved, had settled down in Cresping. One night, at the “Goblets” — the historic village inn — Heidelberger having swaggered into the place, there arose an open quarrel. Said Ryder —
“Sir Richard, with all his faults, was once a good English gentleman, and, but for such as you, a good English gentleman he might have died!”
“It was exactly a week later that the tragedy occurred.
“We come to it now, eh?” interrupted Moris Klaw at this point. “So — we also come to the station! I will ask you to reserve us a first-class carriage!”
Grimsby made arrangements to that end. And, as the train moved out of the station, resumed his story.
“What I gather is this,” he said.
[I condense his statement and append it in my own words.]
The “Goblets” was just closing its doors, and the villagers who nightly met there were standing in a group under the swinging sign, when a man came running down the street from the direction of the Hall, and, observing the gathering, ran up. It was Heimer, Isaac Heidelberger’s secretary. He was hatless and his flabby face, in the dim light, was ghastly.
“Quick!” he rasped, hoarsely. “Where does the doctor live?”
“Last house but one,” somebody said. “What’s the matter?”
“Murder!” cried Heimer, as he rushed off down the village street.
Such was the dramatic manner in which the news of the subsequently notorious case was first carried to the outside world. The facts, as soon made known throughout the length and breadth of the land, were, briefly, as follows.
Heidelberger and his secretary, who were engaged in making an inventory of the contents of the Hall and in arranging for such alterations of the rooms and laying out of the neglected grounds as they considered necessary, had practically reached the end of their task. In fact, had nothing intervened, Cresping would, on the following day, have seen the old mansion in the hands of an army of London workmen.
At about half-past seven in the evening, Heidelberger had entered the room occupied by Heimer and had mentioned that he expected a visitor. The secretary, who had more work than he could well accomplish, did not pause to inquire concerning him, believing the other to allude either to the architect or to Heidelberger’s man, who was coming down from London. Heidelberger had then gone up to the library, saying that he should not require Heimer again that night.
Between eight and half-past — Heimer was not sure of the time — there was a ring at the bell (that of the tradesmen’s entrance). Knowing that Heidelberger could admit the visitor directly to the library, Heimer, hearing nothing more, concluded that the two were closeted there.
The first intimation that he received of anything amiss was a loud and angry cry, apparently proceeding from the old banqueting-hall directly overhead, and unmistakably in the voice of Heidelberger. Springing from his chair, he took a step towards the door, and then paused in doubt. There was an angry murmur from above, the tones of the Jew being clearly distinguishable; then a sudden scuffle and an oscillation of the floor as though two heavy men were at handigrips; next, a crash that shook the room, and a high-pitched cry of which he only partially comprehended
the last word. This he asserted to be “holy.”
That Heimer stood transfixed at the open door throughout all this, suffices to brand him a coward. It was, in fact, only his stories of shadowy figures in the picture gallery and his general disinclination to leave his room after dusk that had prompted Heidelberger — a man of different mettle — to wire to London for the servant.
At this juncture, however, moved as much by a fear of the sudden silence as by any higher motive, he took a revolver from the table drawer, and, holding it cocked in one hand and seizing the lamp in the other, he crept, trembling, up a narrow little stair that led to a door beneath the minstrels’ gallery. To open it he had to place the lamp on the floor, and, at the moment of doing so, he heard a sound inside the hall like the grating of a badly oiled lock.
Then, with the lamp held high above his head, he peered inside; and, considering the character of the man, it is worthy of note that he did not faint on the spot, for the feeble light, but serving, as it did, to intensify the gloom of the long and shadowy place, revealed a scene well calculated to shake the nerves of a stouter man than Heimer.
Less than six feet from where he stood, and lying flat on his back, with his head towards the light, was Heidelberger in a perfect pool of blood, his skull cleft almost to the chine! Beside him on the floor lay the fearful weapon that had wrought his end — an enormous battle-axe, a relic of the Crusades such as none but a man of herculean strength could possibly wield.
Sick with terror, and scarcely capable of keeping his feet, Heimer gave one glance around the gloomy place, which showed him that, save for the murdered man, it was empty; then he staggered down the narrow stairs and let himself out into the grounds. Slightly revived by the fresh night air, but fearful of pursuit by the unknown assassin, he ran, as fast as his condition would allow, into the village.
“Here it is — Uxley!” jerked Moris Klaw.
III
“Ah!” cried Moris Klaw, in a species of fanatic rapture— “look at the blood!”
