The dream detective
“Tradesmen’s entrance to the next house.”
“Whose house?”
“Doctor Gleason.”
“M.D.?”
“Yes. But tell me, Mr. Klaw--tell me, have you any clue?”
“My mind, Mr. Paxton, records for me that Nicris was not stolen away,
but _walked!_ Plainly, I feel her go tiptoe, tiptoe, so silent and
cautious! She is concerned, this barbaric dancing girl who escapes
from your studio, with two things. One is some very big man. She
thinks, as she tiptoes, of one very tall: six feet and three inches at
least! So it is not of you she thinks, Mr. Paxton. We shall see of
whom it is. Tell me the name of your acquaintance, the
point-policeman.”
We were all staring at Moris Klaw, spellbound with astonishment. But
Paxton managed to mumble:
“James--Constable James.”
“We shall seek him, this James, at the section house of the police
depot,” rumbled Klaw. “Be silent, Mr. Paxton; let no one know of your
loss. And hope.”
“I can see no ground for hope!”
“No? But I? I recognize the clue, Mr. Paxton! What a great science is
that of mental photography!”
What did he mean? None of us could surmise, and I could see that poor
Paxton reposed no faith whatever in the eccentric methods of the
investigator. He would have voiced his doubts, I think, but he met a
glance from the dark eyes of Isis Klaw which silenced him.
“My child,” said Klaw to his daughter, “take the cushion and return.
My negative is a clear one. You understand?”
“Perfectly,” replied Isis, with composure.
“Breakfast----” began Paxton, tentatively.
But Moris Klaw waved his hands and enveloped himself in the big cloak.
“There is no time for such gross matters!” he said. “We are busy.”
From the brown bowler he took out a scent spray and bedewed his high,
bald forehead with verbena.
“It is exhausting, that odic photography!” he explained.
Shortly afterward he and I walked around to the local police depot.
Something occurred to me, en route.
“By the way,” I said, “what was the other thing of which you spoke?
The thing that you declared Nicris to be thinking of, though I don’t
understand in the least how one can refer to the ‘thoughts’ of an
ivory statue!”
“Ah,” rumbled my companion, “it is something I shall explain
later--that other fear of the missing one.”
Arriving at the police depot, “Shall I ask for Constable James?” I
said.
“Ah, no,” replied Klaw. “It is for the constable that he relieved at
twelve o’clock I am looking.”
Inquiry showed that the latter officer--his name was Freeman--had just
entered the section house. Moris Klaw’s questions elicited the
following story, although its bearing upon the matter in hand was not
evident to me.
Toward twelve o’clock, that is, shortly before Freeman was relieved, a
man, supporting a woman, came down the street and entered the gate of
Doctor Gleeson’s house. The woman was enveloped in a huge fur cloak
which entirely concealed her face and figure, but from her feeble step
the constable judged her to be very ill. Considering the lateness of
the hour, also, he concluded that the case must be a serious one; he
further supposed the sick woman to be resident in the neighbourhood,
since she came on foot.
He had begun to wonder at the length of the consultation, when, nearly
an hour later, the man appeared again from the shadows of the drive,
still supporting the woman. Pausing at the gate he waved his hand to
the policeman.
Constable Freeman ran across the road immediately.
“Fetch me a taxicab, officer!” said the stranger, supporting his
companion and exhibiting much solicitude.
Freeman promptly ran to the corner of Beira Road and returned with a
cab from the all-night rank.
“Open the door!” directed the man, who was a person of imposing
height--some six-feet-three, Freeman averred.
“Ha, ha!” growled Moris Klaw, “six-feet-three! What a wondrous
science!”
He seemed triumphant; but I was merely growing more nonplussed.
With that, carefully wrapping the cloak about the woman’s figure, the
big man took her up in his arms and placed her inside the cab--the
only glimpse of her which the constable obtained being that of a small
foot clad in a silk stocking. She had apparently dropped her shoe.
Tenderly assisting her to a corner of the vehicle, the man, having
bent and whispered some word of encouragement in her ear, directed the
cabman to drive to the Savoy.
“Did you give him your assistance?” asked Moris Klaw.
“No. He did not seem to require it.”
“And the number of the cabman?”
Freeman fetched his notebook and supplied the required information.
“Thank you, Constable Freeman,” said Klaw. “You are a very alert
constable. Good morning, Constable Freeman!”
Again satisfaction beamed from behind my companion’s glasses. But to
my eyes the darkness grew momentarily less penetrable. For these
inquiries bore upon matters which had occurred prior to twelve
o’clock; and, Coram, myself, and Paxton had seen the statue in its
usual place considerably after midnight! My brain was in a turmoil.
Said Moris Klaw: “That cab was from the big garage at Brixton. We
shall ring up the Brixton garage and learn where the man may be found.
Perhaps, if Providence is with us--and Providence is with the
right--he has not yet again left home.”
From a public call office we rang up the garage, and learned that the
man we wanted was not due to report for duty until ten o’clock. We
experienced some difficulty in obtaining his private address, but
finally it was given to us. Thither we hastened, and aroused the man
from his bed.
“A big gentleman and a sick lady,” said Moris Klaw, “they hired your
cab from Doctor Gleeson’s, near Beira Road, at about twelve o’clock
last night, and you drove them to the Savoy Hotel.”
“No, sir. He changed the address afterward. I’ve been wondering why. I
drove him to Number 6A, Rectory Grove, Old Town, Clapham.”
“Was the lady by then recovered--no? Yes?”
“Partly, sir. I heard him talking to her. But he carried her into the
house.”
“Ah,” said Moris Klaw, “there is much genius wasted; but what a great
science is the science of the mind!”
IV
Many times Moris Klaw knocked upon the door of the house in Clapham
Old Town, a small one, standing well back from the roadway. Within we
could hear someone coughing.
Then the door was suddenly thrown open, and a man appeared who must
have stood some six feet three inches. He had finely chiselled
features, was clean-shaven, and wore pince-nez.
Klaw said a thing that had a surprising effect.
“What!” he rumbled, “has Nina caught cold?”
The other glared, with a sudden savagery coming into his eyes, fell
back a step, and clenched his great fists.
“Enough, Jean Colette!” said Morris Klaw, “you do not know me, but I
know you. Attempt no tricks, or it is the police and not a meddlesome,
harmless old fool who will come. Enter, Jean! We follow.”
For a moment longer the big man hesitated, and I saw the shadows of
alternate resolves passing across his fine features. Then clearly he
saw that surrender was inevitable, shrugged his shoulders, and stared
hard at my companion.
“Enter, messieurs,” he said, with a marked French accent.
He said no more, but led the way into a long, bare room at the rear of
the house. To term the apartment a laboratory would be correct but not
inclusive; for it was, in addition, a studio and a workshop. Glancing
rapidly around him, Moris Klaw asked, “Where is it?”
The man’s face was a study as he stood before us, looking from one to
the other. Then a peculiar smile, indescribably winning, played around
his lips. “You are very clever, and I know when I am beaten,” he
remarked; “but had you come four hours later it would have been one
hour too late.”
He strode up the room to where a tall screen stood, and, seizing it by
the top, hurled it to the ground.
Behind, on a model’s dais, reclined the statue of Nicris, in a low
chair!
“You have already removed the girdle and one of the anklets,” rumbled
Klaw.
This was true. Indeed, it now became evident that the man had been
interrupted in his task by our arrival. Opening a leather case that
stood upon the floor by the dais, he produced the missing ornaments.
“What action is to be taken, messieurs?” he asked, quietly.
“No action, Jean,” replied Moris Klaw. “It is impossible, you see. But
why did you delay so long?”
The other’s reply was unexpected.
“It is a task demanding much time and care, if the statue is not to be
ruined; otherwise I should have performed it in Mr. Paxton’s studio
instead of going to the trouble of removing the figure--and---- Nina’s
condition has caused me grave anxiety throughout the night.” He stared
hard at Moris Klaw. We could hear the sound of coughing from some room
hard by. “Who are you, m’sieur?” he asked, pointedly.
“An old fool who knew Nina when she posed at Julien’s, Jean,” was the
reply, “and who knew you, also, in Paris.”
V
Paxton, Coram, myself, and Moris Klaw sat in the studio, and all of us
gazed reflectively at the recovered statue.
“It was so evident,” explained Klaw, “that, since you were absent from
here but thirty seconds, for any one to have removed the statue during
that time was out of the question.”
“But someone did----”
“Not during that time,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “Nicris was removed whilst
you all made merry within the house!”
“But, my dear Mr. Klaw, Searles, Coram, and I saw the statue long
after that--some time about one o’clock!”
“Wrong, my friend! You saw the _model!_”
“What! Nina?”
“Madame Colette, whom you knew in Paris as Nina--yes! Listen--when I
drop off to sleep here and dream that I am afraid for what may happen
to some very large man, I dream, also, that I fear to be _touched!_ I
look down at myself, and I am beautiful! I am ivory of limb and decked
with gold! I creep, so cautiously, out of the studio (in my
dream--_you_ would call it a dream), and I know, when I wake, that I
must have been Nicris! Ah, you wonder! Listen.
“At about midnight, whilst your party is amiable together, comes one,
Jean Colette, a clever scamp from that metropolis of such perverted
genius--Paris. Into Doctor Gleeson’s he goes, supporting Madame--your
model. This is seen by Constable Freeman. When the trees hide them
they climb over the fence into the lane and over the wall into your
garden. Nina has a cast of the studio key. How easy for her to get it!
“Jean, a clever rogue with his hands, and a man who promised to be,
once, a great artist, detaches the figure from the throne and arrays
it as Madame--in Madame’s outer garb! Beneath her cloak, Madame is
Nicris--with copies of the jewels and all complete. He is clever, this
Jean! He is, too, a man of vast strength--a modern Crotonian Milo. Not
only does he carry that great piece of ivory from the studio, he lifts
it over the wall--did Madame assist?--and into Doctor Gleeson’s drive.
He bears it to the gate, wrapped in Nina’s furs. He calls a policeman!
Ah, genius is here! He gives the wrong address. He is as cool as an
orange!
“Do they escape now? Not so! He sees that you, finding Nicris missing,
will apply to the point-policeman and get hold upon a thread. He says,
‘I will make it to appear that the robbery took place at a later time.
I will thus gain hours! Another policeman will be on duty when the
discovery is made; he will know nothing.’ He leaves Nina to pretend to
be Nicris!
“Ah! she has courage, but her fears are many. Most of all she dreads
that you will _touch_ her! You do not. And Jean, the ivory statue safe
at Clapham, returns for Nina. He comes into the doctor’s drive by the
farther gate--where the point-policeman cannot see him. He wears
rubber shoes. He mounts to the studio roof. He lies flat upon the
ledge above the door. His voice is falsetto. He calls, ‘Nicris!’