The dream detective
“Mr. Klaw,” said Coram, “I cannot doubt that this black business is
all clear to your very unusual intelligence; but to me it is a
profound mystery. I have, myself, in the past, taken up the harp in
the way you describe as fatal, and without injury----”
“But not immediately after it had been played upon!” interrupted Moris
Klaw.
“Played upon! I have never attempted to play upon it!”
“Even had you done so you might yet have escaped, provided you _set it
down_ before touching the top part! Note, please!”
He ran his long white fingers over the golden strings. Instantly there
stole upon my ears that weird, wailing music which had heralded the
strange happenings of the night!
“And now,” continued our mentor, “whilst I who am cunning hold it
where the ladies’ gold feet join, observe the top--where the hand
would in ordinary rest in holding it.”
We gathered around him.
“A _needle-point_,” he rumbled, impressively, “protruding! The player
touches it not! But who takes it from the hand of the player _dies!_
By placing the harp again upon its base the point again retires! Shall
I say what is upon that point, to drive a man mad like a dog with
rabies, to stay potent for generations? I cannot. It is a secret
buried with the ugly body of Cæsar Borgia!”
“Cæsar Borgia!” we cried in chorus.
“Ah!” rumbled Moris Klaw, “your Athenean Harp was indeed made by
Paduano Zelloni, the Florentine! It is a clever forge! I have been in
Rome until yesterday. You are surprised? I am sorry, for the poor
Macalister died. Having perfected, with the aid of Isis, my mind
photograph of the lady who plays the harp, I go to Rome to perfect the
story of the harp. For why? At my house I have records, but
incomplete, useless. In Rome I have a friend, of so old a family, and
once so wicked, I shall not name it!
“He has recourse to the great Vatican Library--to the annals of his
race. There he finds me an account of such a harp. In those priceless
parchments it is called ‘a Greek lyre of gold.’ It is described. I am
convinced. I am sure!
“Once the beautiful Lucrece Borgia play upon this harp. To one who is
distasteful to her she says: ‘Replace for me my harp.’ He does so. He
is a dead man! God! what cleverness!
“Where has it lain for generations before your Sir Menzies find it? No
man knows. But it has still its virtues! How did the poor Menzies die?
Throw himself from his room window, I recently learn. This harp
certainly was in his room. Conway, after dashing, mad, about the
place, springs head downward from the attendant’s chair. Macalister
dies in exhaustion and convulsions!”
A silence; when--
“What caused the harp to play?” asked Coram.
Moris Klaw looked hard at him. Then a thrill of new horror ran through
my veins. A low moan came from somewhere hard by! Coram turned in a
flash!
“Why, my private door is open!” he whispered.
“Where do you keep your private keys?” rumbled Klaw.
“In my study.” Coram was staring at the open door, but seemed afraid
to approach it. “We have been using the attendant’s keys at night. My
own are on my study mantelpiece now.”
“I think not,” continued the thick voice. “Your daughter has them!”
“My daughter!” cried Coram, and sprang to the open door. “Heavens!
Hilda! Hilda!”
“She is somnambulistic!” whispered Moris Klaw in my ear. “When certain
unusual sounds--such as heavy vehicles at night--reach her in her
sleep (ah! how little we know of the phenomenon of sleep!), she
arises, and, in common with many sleepwalkers, always acts the same.
Something, in the case of Miss Hilda, attracts her to the golden
harp----”
“She is studying music!”
“She must rest from it. Her brain is overwrought! She unlocks the case
and strikes the cords of the harp, relocking the door, replacing the
keys--I before have known such cases--then retires as she came. Who
takes the harp from her hands, or raises it, if she has laid it down
upon its side, dies! These dead attendants were brave fellows both,
for, hearing the music, they came running, saw how the matter was, and
did not waken the sleeping player. Conway was poisoned as he returned
the harp to its case; Macalister, as he took it up from where it lay.
Something to-night awoke her ere she could relock the door. The fright
of so awaking made her to swoon.”
Coram’s kindly voice and the sound of a girl sobbing affrightedly
reached us.
“It was my yell of fear, Mr. Klaw!” said Grimsby, shamefacedly. “She
looked like a ghost!”
“I understand,” rumbled Moris Klaw, soothingly. “As I see her in my
sleep she is very awesome! I will show you the picture Isis has made
from my etheric photograph. I saw it, finished, earlier to-night. It
confirmed me that the Miss Hilda with the harp in her hand was poor
Conway’s last thought in life!”
“Mr. Klaw,” said Grimsby, earnestly, “you are a very remarkable man!”
“Yes?” he rumbled, and gingerly placed in its case the “Greek lyre of
gold” which Paduano Zelloni had wrought for Cæsar Borgia.
From the brown hat he took out his scent spray and squirted verbena
upon his heated forehead.
“That harp,” he explained, “it smells of dead men!”
SECOND EPISODE.
CASE OF THE POTSHERD OF ANUBIS
In examining the mass of material which I have collated respecting
Moris Klaw, several outstanding facts strike me as being worthy of
some special notice.
For instance, an unusual number of the cases in which he was concerned
centred about curios and relics of various kinds. His personal tastes
(he was, I think, primarily, an antiquarian) may have led him to
examine such cases in preference to others. Then again, no two of his
acquaintances agree upon the point of Moris Klaw’s actual identity and
personality. He was a master of disguise; and the grand secret of his
life was one which he jealously guarded from all.
But was the Moris Klaw who kept the curio shop in Wapping the real
Moris Klaw? And to what extent did he believe in those psychical
phenomena upon which professedly his methods were based? As
particularly bearing upon this phase of the matter, I have selected,
for narration here, the story of the potsherd.
Since the Boswell, in records of this kind, has often appeared, to my
mind, to overshadow the Johnson, I have decided to present this
episode in the words of Mr. J.E. Wilson Clifford, electrical engineer,
of Copthall House, Copthall Avenue, E.C., to whom I am indebted for a
full and careful account. I do not think I could improve upon his
paper, and my own views might unduly intrude upon the story;
therefore, with your permission, I will vacate the rostrum in favour
of Mr. Clifford, for whom I solicit your attention.
_Mr. Clifford’s Story of the Egyptian Potsherd_
I
During the autumn of 19--, I was sharing a pleasant set of rooms with
Mark Lesty, who was shortly taking up an appointment at a London
hospital, and it was, I think, about the middle of that month that the
extraordinary affair of Halesowen and his Egyptian potsherd came under
our notice.
Our rooms (they were in a southwest suburb) overlooked a fine expanse
of Common. Halesowen rented a flat commanding a similar prospect; and,
at the time of which I write, he had but recently returned from a
protracted visit to Egypt.
Halesowen was a tall, fair man, clean-shaven, very fresh coloured, and
wearing his hair cropped close to his head. He was well travelled and
no mean antiquary. He lived entirely by himself; and Lesty and I
frequently spent the evening at his place, which was a veritable
museum of curiosities. I distinctly recall the first time that he
showed us his latest acquisitions.
Both the windows were wide open and the awning fluttered in the slight
breeze. Dusk was just descending, and we sat looking out over the
Common and puffing silently at our briars. We had been examining the
relics that Halesowen had brought back from the land of the Pharaohs,
the one, I remember, which had most impressed me, tyro that I was,
being the mummy of a sacred cat from Bubastis.
“It wouldn’t have been worth bringing back only for the wrapping,”
Halesowen assured me. “This, now, is really unique.”
The object referred to was a broken pot or vase, upon which he pointed
out a number of hieroglyphics and a figure with the head of a jackal.
“A potsherd inscribed with the figure of Anubis,” he explained. “Very
valuable.”
“Why?” Lesty inquired, in his lazy way.
“Well,” Halesowen replied, “the characters of the inscription are of a
kind entirely unfamiliar to me. I believe them to be a sort of secret
writing, possibly peculiar to some brotherhood. I am risking expert
opinion, although, in every sense, I stole the thing!”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Well, Professor Sheraton--you’ll see his name on a row of cases in
the B.M.--excavated it. But it’s a moral certainty he didn’t intend to
advise the authorities of his find. He was going to smuggle it out of
Egypt into his private collection. I had marked the spot where he
found it for inquiries of my own. This dishonest old fossil----”
Lesty laughed.
“Oh! my own motives weren’t above suspicion! But, anyway, the
Professor anticipated me. Accordingly, I employed one Ali, a
distinguished member of a family of thieves, to visit the learned
gentleman’s tent! Cutting the story--there’s the pot!”
“Here! I say!” drawled Lesty. “You’ll come to a bad end, young
fellow!”
“The position is a peculiar one,” replied Halesowen, smiling. “Neither
of us had any legal claim to the sherd--whilst we were upon Egyptian
territory. Therefore, even if the Professor learnt that I had the
thing--and he may suspect--he couldn’t prosecute me!”
“Devilish high-handed!” commented Lesty.
“Yes. But remember we were well off the map--miles away from Cook’s
route. The possession of this potsherd ought to make a man’s
reputation--any man who knows a bit about the subject. Curiously
enough, a third party had had his eye upon the place where this
much-sought sherd was found. And in some mysterious fashion he tumbled
to the fact that it had fallen into _my_ hands. He made a sort of
veiled offer of a hundred pounds for it. I refused, but ran across him
again, a week or so later, in Cairo, and he raised his price to two
hundred.”
“That’s strange,” I said. “Who was he?”
“Called himself Zeda--Dr. Louis Zeda. He quite lost his temper when I
declined to sell, and I’ve not set eyes on him since.”
He relocked the fragment in his cabinet, and we lapsed into silence,
to sit gazing meditatively across the Common, picturesque in the dim
autumn twilight.
“By the way, Halesowen,” I said, “I see that the flat next door, same
floor as this, is to let.”
“That’s so,” he replied. “Why don’t you men take it?”
“We’ll think about it,” yawned Lesty, stretching his long limbs.
“Might look over it in the morning.”
The following day we viewed the vacant flat, but found, upon inquiry
of the agent, that it had already been let. However, as our own rooms
suited us very well, we were not greatly concerned. Just as we
finished dinner the same evening, Halesowen came in, and, without
preamble, plunged into a surprising tale of uncanny happenings at his
place.
“Take it slow,” said Lesty. “You say it was after we came away?”
“About an hour after,” replied Halesowen. “I had brought out the
potsherd, and had it in the wooden stand on the table before me. I was
copying the hieroglyphics, which are unusual, and had my reading lamp
burning only, the rest of the room being consequently in shadow. I was
sitting with my back to the windows, facing the door, so no one could
possibly have entered the room unseen by me. It was as I bent down to
scrutinize a badly defaced character that I felt a queer sensation
stealing over me, as though someone were standing close behind my
chair, watching me!”