The dream detective
Miss Greta what Ottley would have asked her.”
“And that is?”
“What she feared that made her so very anxious to get you away from
your home. To me she admitted that she had received from the man Costa
impassioned appeals, such as, foolish girl, she had been afraid to
show to you--her father!”
“Good heavens! the scamp!”
“The _canaille!_ But no matter, he is dead _canaille!_ After you got
the brother hanged, this Corpus Chris (it was Fate that named him!)
sent to your daughter a mad letter, swearing that if she does not fly
with him, he will kill you if he has to follow you around the world!
Yes, he was insane, I fancy; I think so. But he was a man of very
great culture. He held a Cambridge degree! You did not know? I thought
not. He tracked you to Europe and right to this house. Its history he
learned in some way and used for his own ends. Probably, too, he had
no opportunity of getting at you otherwise, without leaving behind a
clue or being seen and pursued.”
Moris Klaw picked up an Indian bow which lay upon the floor beside
him.
“A bow of the Sioux pattern,” he rumbled, impressively.
He stooped again, picking up a small arrow to which a length of thin
black twine was attached.
“One standing on the balcony in the moonlight,” he continued, “what a
certain mark if the wind be not too high! And you will remember that
on gently blowing nights the whispering came!”
He raised the point of the arrow. It was encrusted in some black,
shining substance. Moris Klaw lowered his voice.
“_Curari!_” he said, hoarsely, “the ancient arrow poison of the South
American tribes! This small arrow would make only a tiny wound, and it
could be drawn back again by means of the twine attached. Costa, of
course, mistook Ottley for you, Mr. Haufmann. Ah, a clever fellow! I
spent three evenings up the second tree in the avenue waiting for him.
I need not have shot him if you had followed my instructions and not
come out on the balcony. We could have captured him alive!”
“I’m not crying about it!” said Haufmann.
“Neither do I weep,” rumbled Moris Klaw, and bathed his face with
perfume. “But I loathe it, this _curari_--it smells of death. Ah! the
_canaille!_”
SEVENTH EPISODE.
CASE OF THE CHORD IN G
I
It has been suggested to me more than once that the extraordinary
crime which became known throughout the press as the Chelsea studio
murder was the Waterloo of my eccentric friend, Moris Klaw; to which I
reply that, on the contrary, it was his Austerlitz. This prince of
criminologists, some of whose triumphs it has been my privilege to
chronicle, never more dramatically established his theory of what he
termed “Odic negatives” than in his solution of the mystery of the
death of Pyke Webley, the portrait painter.
His singular power, which I can only term post-telepathy, of
recovering thought-forms from the atmosphere, earned him the derision
of the ignorant, as I have shown, but the grateful appreciation of the
better informed--not least among these, Detective-Inspector Grimsby,
of New Scotland Yard.
I cannot doubt that the recent experiments of Professor Gilbert Murray
were based upon that law of “psychic angles” laid down by the strange
genius of Wapping Old Stairs.
During lunch, I had been reading an account of the Chelsea tragedy in
an early edition of the _Evening Standard_, and on returning to my
chambers I found Inspector Grimsby waiting for me. A preamble was
unnecessary. Simple deduction told me why he had come.
He was in charge of the Chelsea mystery--and out of his depth.
By several years the youngest detective inspector in the Service,
Grimsby is a man earmarked by nature for constant promotion. He
possesses a gift more precious than genius--the art of _using_ genius;
allied to which he has that knack indispensable to any man who would
succeed--the knack of finding the limelight. Although he may have done
no more than stand in the wings throughout the performance,
Detective-Inspector Grimsby invariably takes the last curtain.
This is as it should be, and I accord him my respectful admiration.
Therefore, on seeing him:
“The murder of Pyke Webley?” I said, interrogatively.
“Well, that’s wonderful!” he declared, trying to look surprised. “I
shall begin to think you are Moris Klaw’s only rival if you spring
things like this on me.”
“I see,” said I, tossing my paper on the table. “The case is not so
simple as it appears.”
“Simple!” cried Grimsby. He threw the stump of a vicious-looking
cheroot into my hearth. “Simple? It’s _too_ simple. By which I mean
that there is nothing to work upon--nothing _I_ can see.”
He stood, his back to the hearth, looking at me appealingly; and:
“Have you ’phoned to Wapping?” I asked.
Grimsby nodded.
“I could get no reply,” he answered gloomily.
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Well”--he hesitated--“I know your time is of value, Mr. Searles, but
I was wondering--I have a taxi outside--if you had time to run down to
Moris Klaw’s place with me for a chat?”
“Why not go alone?”
“Ah!” He selected a fresh cheroot and made it crackle between finger
and thumb. “His daughter is the snag. She thinks I waste his time. I
doubt if she’d let me see him.”
“Your own fault,” I said. “She’s a charming girl. You don’t handle her
properly.”
“Ah!” he repeated, and became silent, fumbling for matches. Finally,
taking pity upon him:
“Very well,” I agreed, “I have a couple of hours to spare, and if Klaw
takes up the case my time will not be wasted.”
II
“You see,” said Grimsby, plaintively, as the cab threaded dingy
highways, “there is absolutely no motive. Pyke Webley seems to have
been a decent, clean-living man, with absolutely no vices as far as I
can gather. Of course, I have tried to find a woman in the case, but
the only women I’ve found are heartbroken about his death. A most
popular chap. Revenge is out of the question; robbery is out of the
question; and I’d take my oath that jealousy is out of the question.
So what am I to make of it?”
“He was strangled?”
“Yes.” Grimsby nodded. “By a very powerful man. His face is horrible
to see, and there are blue weals on his neck where the strangler’s
fingers bit into the flesh.”
“Who saw him last, alive?”
“The door-keeper of the Ham Bone Club,” came the answer, promptly. “He
dined there, stayed an hour talking to friends and then went out,
saying that he had work to do at his studio. The studio is separated
from the house by a small garden and can be entered direct from a side
entrance. There are only two servants--he was a bachelor--a cook
general and a man who has been with him for years. Neither of them
heard him come into the house, so that we presume he went straight
into the studio. Early this morning a charwoman, who comes daily,
finding the studio door locked (I mean the one that opens on the
garden) reported this to Parker (that’s the man’s name) and he came
down with the key.”
“But,” I interrupted, “Parker must surely have known before this that
his master was not in the house?”
“No!” Grimsby shook his head emphatically. “Mr. Webley often worked
late and Parker had orders never to disturb him until his bell rang.”
“I see,” said I. “So they unlocked the studio----”
“Yes,” Grimsby went on, “and found him there--lying strangled on the
floor.”
“How long had he been dead?”
“Well, the police surgeon says several hours. Everything points to the
fact that it happened shortly after he entered the place.”
“Someone may have been concealed there,” I suggested.
“God knows!” Grimsby muttered. “I can’t find a thing to work upon. And
in a case like this the first twelve hours are important. But here we
are,” he added, nervously.
At the head of that blind alley which shelters the
all-but-indescribable establishment of Moris Klaw, we directed the
taxi man to wait. This was a foggy afternoon and only dimly could we
discern the lights in front of the shop. A chill in the atmosphere
told of the nearness of old Father Thames, and as we approached that
stacked-up lumber which represented the visible stock-in-trade of the
proprietor, a singular piece of human flotsam was revealed propped
against the door-post, a fragment of cigarette adhering to the corner
of his mouth and threatening at any moment to ignite the stained and
walrus-like moustache which distinguished William, Moris Klaw’s
salesman.
“Good afternoon,” I said; “will you tell Mr. Moris Klaw that I have
called?”
“Certainly, sir,” wheezed the inebriate. “Great pleasure, sir, I’m
sure, sir.”
William paused, turned, and looked back.
“Do you mind a-waitin’ outside?” he added. “There’s a boy with red
’air ’angin’ about somewhere as ’as got ’is eye on this ’ere golf
club”--indicating a dilapidated niblick. “If we all goes in ’e’ll nip
orf with it.”
Accordingly we lingered, and:
“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! The devil’s come for you!” screeched the
parrot who mounted guard within.
Presently came Klaw’s unmistakable deep, rumbling voice from the
interior gloom:
“Ah! Good afternoon, Mr. Searles! Is it Detective-Inspector Grimsby
you have with you? Good afternoon, Mr. Grimsby.”
He advanced through the odorous shadows, a strange, a striking figure
and--
“Behold!” he said, “_I_ have my hat and _you_ have your cab. It is to
Chelsea you take me? Yes?”
From the lining of the flat-topped hat he took out his cylindrical
scent spray and played its contents upon his high, bald crown.
“Verbena,” he rumbled. “My guinea-pigs, they detest it, but I find it
so refreshing.” He replaced the spray in the hat, the hat on his
crown. “I have recently bought a fine pair of armadillos,” he
explained, “and they have an odour peculiar which, to me, is
objectionable.”
He regarded William, who was glancing suspiciously up and down the
narrow alley.
“William,” he admonished, “cease to dwell upon the youth with red
hair. He becomes with you an obsession. Give the sheldrake some fresh
seaweed, and if the hedgehogs continue to refuse apples, they may have
each a small piece of raw steak.”
He approached the waiting taxi cab, and on the step he paused.
“Mr. Searles, I shall buy no more hedgehogs. They are not only
delicate in captivity but one was in my bed last night.”
We all entered the cab; and:
“Now, Mr. Grimsby,” Moris Klaw continued, “tell me all about this poor
fellow who is murdered. I am expecting you. I see it is not simple. I
say, ‘The old fool from Wapping is wanted here.’”
III
“You are squeamish, Mr. Searles,” said Moris Klaw, wagging a long
finger at me. “You squeam. You are not yet recovered from the blue
face of the murdered. Ah, well! it is horrible.”
The body had been removed and we had been to view it. Now we stood in
the studio where the crime had taken place, and although some time had
elapsed since we had left the mortuary, I confess that I was not
entirely myself. Dusk was come and we had turned up the studio lights.
A faint mist hung in the place, for the fog had grown denser.
I looked about me at half-completed pictures: groups; studies for
magazine jackets; portraits of children and of women--and the ghastly
face seemed to rise up before me, the distorted face of the man whose
hand would never touch again the brushes of his craft.
“It isn’t the first time I’ve seen a strangling case,” said Grimsby,
“but it’s the first time I’ve seen marks like that.”
“Ah! really!” Moris Klaw rumbled, turning to him. “Never before, eh,
like that? You interest me, my friend; you begin to notice. Your
intellect it expands like a sunflower in the sun. What is it that you
see different in those marks?”
Grimsby stared hard, painfully uncertain whether to regard the words
as a compliment or a joke, but finally: