Chapter II

The heavy door swinging open, there entered Hilda Coram, a slim, classical figure, with the regular features of her father and the pale gold hair of her dead mother. She looked unwell, and stared about her apprehensively.

“Good morning, Mr. Searles,” she greeted me. “Is it not dreadful about poor Conway!”--and then glanced at Coram. I saw that she held a card in her hand. “Father, there is such a singular old man asking to see you.”

She handed the card to Coram, who in turn passed it to me. It was that of Douglas Glade of the _Daily Cable_, and had written upon it in Glade’s hand the words, “To introduce Mr. Moris Klaw.”

“I suppose it is all right if Mr. Glade vouches for him,” said Coram. “But does anybody here know Moris Klaw?”

“I do,” replied the Scotland Yard man, smiling shortly. “He’s an antique dealer or something of the kind; got a ramshackle old place by Wapping Old Stairs--sort of a cross between Jamrach’s and a rag shop. He’s lately been hanging about the Central Criminal Court a lot. Seems to fancy his luck as an amateur investigator. He’s certainly smart,” he added, grudgingly, “but cranky.”

“Ask Mr. Klaw to come through, Hilda,” said Coram.

Shortly afterward entered a strange figure. It was that of a tall man who stooped, so that his apparent height was diminished--a very old man who carried his many years lightly, or a younger man prematurely aged; none could say which. His skin had the hue of dirty vellum, and his hair, his shaggy brows, his scanty beard were so toneless as to defy classification in terms of colour. He wore an archaic brown bowler, smart, gold-rimmed pince-nez, and a black silk muffler. A long, caped black cloak completely enveloped the stooping figure; from beneath its mud-spattered edge peeped long-toed continental boots.

He removed his hat.

“Good morning, Mr. Coram,” he said. His voice reminded me of the distant rumbling of empty casks; his accent was wholly indescribable. “Good morning” (to the detective), “Mr. Grimsby. Good morning, Mr. Searles. Your friend, Mr. Glade, tells me I shall find you here. Good morning, Inspector. To Miss Coram I already have said good morning.”

From the lining of the flat-topped hat he took out one of those small cylindrical scent sprays and played its contents upon his high, bald brow. An odour of verbena filled the air. He replaced the spray in the hat, the hat upon his scantily thatched crown.

“There is here a smell of dead men!” he explained.

I turned aside to hide my smiles, so grotesque was my first impression of the amazing individual known as Moris Klaw.

“Mr. Coram,” he continued, “I am an old fool who sometimes has wise dreams. Crime has been the hobby of a busy life. I have seen crime upon the Gold Coast, where the black fever it danced in the air above the murdered one like a lingering soul, and I have seen blood flow in Arctic Lapland, where it was frozen up into red ice almost before it left the veins. Have I your permit to see if I can help?”

All of us, the police included, were strangely impressed now.

“Certainly,” said Coram; “will you step this way?”

Moris Klaw bent over the dead man.

“You have moved him!” he said, sharply.

It was explained that this had been for the purpose of a medical examination. He nodded absently. With the aid of a large magnifying glass he was scrutinizing poor Conway. He examined his hair, his eyes, his hands, his fingernails. He rubbed long, flexible fingers upon the floor beside the body--and sniffed at the dust.

“Someone so kindly will tell me all about it,” he said, turning out the dead man’s pockets.

Coram briefly recounted much of the foregoing, and replied to the oddly chosen questions which from time to time Moris Klaw put to him. Throughout the duologue, the singular old man conducted a detailed search of every square inch, I think, of the Greek Room. Before the case containing the harp he stood, peering.

“It is here that the trouble centres,” he muttered. “What do I know of such a Grecian instrument? Let me think.”

He threw back his head, closing his eyes.

“Such valuable curios,” he rumbled, “have histories--and the crimes they occasion operate in cycles.” He waved his hand in a slow circle. “If I but knew the history of this harp! Mr. Coram!”

He glanced toward my friend.

“Thoughts are things, Mr. Coram. If I might spend a night here--upon the very spot of floor where the poor Conway fell--I could from the surrounding atmosphere (it is a sensitive plate) recover a picture of the thing in his mind”--indicating Conway--“at the last!”

The Scotland Yard man blew down his nose.

“You snort, my friend,” said Moris Klaw, turning upon him. “You would snort less if you had waked screaming, out in the desert; screaming out with fear of the dripping beaks of the vultures--the last dreadful fear which the mind had known of him who had died of thirst upon that haunted spot!”

The words and the manner of their delivery thrilled us all.

“What is it,” continued the weird old man, “but the odic force, the ether--say it how you please--which carries the wireless message, the lightning? It is a huge, subtile, sensitive plate. Inspiration, what you call bad luck and good luck--all are but reflections from it. The supreme thought preceding death is imprinted on the surrounding atmosphere like a photograph. I have trained this”--he tapped his brow--“to reproduce those photographs! May I sleep here to-night, Mr. Coram?”

Somewhere beneath the ramshackle exterior we had caught a glimpse of a man of power. From behind the thick pebbles momentarily had shone out the light of a tremendous and original mind.

“I should be most glad of your assistance,” answered my friend.

“No police must be here to-night,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “No heavy-footed constables, filling the room with thoughts of large cooks and small Basses, must fog my negative!”

“Can that be arranged?” asked Coram of the inspector.

“The men on duty can remain in the hall, if you wish it, sir.”

“Good!” rumbled Moris Klaw.

He moistened his brow with verbena, bowed uncouthly, and shuffled from the Greek Room.