Chapter I

One afternoon Moris Klaw walked into my office and announced that “owing to alterations” he had temporarily suspended business at the Wapping emporium, and thus had found time to give me a call. I always welcomed a chat with that extraordinary man, and although I could conceive of no really useful “alteration” to his unsavoury establishment other than that of setting fire to it, I made no inquiries, but placed an easy chair for him and offered a cigar.

Moris Klaw removed his caped overcoat and dropped it upon the floor. Upon this sartorial wreckage he disposed his flat-topped brown bowler and from it extracted the inevitable scent spray. He sprayed his dome-like brow and bedewed his toneless beard with verbena.

“So refreshing,” he explained; “a custom of the Romans, Mr. Searles. It is a very warm day.”

I admitted that this was so.

“My daughter Isis,” continued Klaw, “has taken advantage of the alterations and decorations to run over so far as Paris.”

I made some commonplace remark, and we drifted into a conversation upon a daring robbery which at that time was flooding the press with copy. We were so engaged when, to my great surprise (for I had thought him at least a thousand miles away), Shan Haufmann was announced. As my old American friend entered, Moris Klaw modestly arose to depart. But I detained him and made the two acquainted.

Haufmann hailed Klaw cordially, exhibiting none of the ill-bred surprise which so often greeted my eccentric acquaintance of singular aspect. Haufmann had all that bonhomie which overlooks the clothes and welcomes the man. He glanced apologetically at his right hand which hung in a sling.

“Can’t shake, Mr. Klaw,” said the big American, a good-humoured smile on his tanned, clean-shaven face. “I stopped some lead awhile back and my right is still off duty.”

Naturally I was anxious at once to know how he had come by the hurt; and he briefly explained that in the discharge of certain official duties he had run foul of a bad gang, two of whom he had been instrumental in convicting of murder, whilst the third had shot him in the arm and escaped.

“Three dagoes,” he explained, in his crisply picturesque fashion, “--been wanted for years. Helped themselves to a bunch of my colts this fall; killed one of the boys and left another for dead. So I went after them hot and strong. We rounded them up on the Mexican border and got two--Schwart Sam and one of the Costas; but the younger Costa--we call him Corpus Chris--broke away and found me in the elbow with a lump of lead!”

“So you’ve come for a holiday?”

“Mostly,” replied Haufmann. “Greta hustled me here. She got real ill when I said I wouldn’t come. So we came! I’m centring in London for six months. Brought the girls over for a look round. I’m not stopping at a hotel. We’ve rented a house a bit outside; it’s Lal’s idea. Settled yesterday. All fixed. Expect you to dinner to-night! You, too, Mr. Klaw! Is it a bet?”

Moris Klaw was commencing some sort of a reply, but what it was never transpired, for Haufmann, waving his sound hand cheerily, quitted the office as rapidly as he had entered, calling back:

“Dine seven-thirty. Girls expecting you!”

That was his way; but so infectious was his real geniality that few could fail to respond to it.

“He is a good fellow, that Mr. Haufmann,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “Yes, I love such natures. But he has forgotten to tell us where he lives!”

It was so! Haufmann in his hurry and impetuosity had overlooked that important matter; but I thought it probable that he would recall the oversight and communicate, so prevailed upon Klaw to remain. At last, however, I glanced at my watch, and found it to be nearly six o’clock, whereupon I looked blankly at Moris Klaw. That eccentric shrugged his shoulders and took up the caped coat. Then the ’phone bell rang. It was Haufmann.

I was glad to hear his familiar accent as he laughingly apologized for his oversight. Rapidly he acquainted me with the whereabouts of The Grove--for so the house was called.

“Come now,” he said. “Don’t stop to dress; you’ve only just got time,” and rang off.

I thought Moris Klaw stared oddly through his pince-nez when I told him the address, but concluded, as he made no comment, that I had been mistaken. There was just time to catch our train, and from the station where we alighted it was only a short drive to the house. Haufmann’s car was waiting for us, and in less than three quarters of an hour from our quitting the Strand, we were driving up to The Grove, through the most magnificent avenue of poplars I had ever seen.

“By Jove!” I cried, “what fine trees!”

Moris Klaw nodded and looked around at the towering trunks with a peculiar expression, which I was wholly at a loss to account for. However, ere I had leisure to think much about the matter, we found ourselves in the hall, where Haufmann and his two fascinating daughters were waiting to greet us. I do not know which of the girls looked the more charming: Lilian with her bright mass of curls and blue eyes dancing with vivacity, or Greta in her dark and rather mystic beauty. At any rate, they were dangerous acquaintances for a susceptible man. Even old Moris Klaw showed unmistakably that his mind was not so wholly filled with obscure sciences as to be incapable of appreciating the society of a pretty woman.

Greta I noticed looking thoughtfully at him, and during dinner she suddenly asked him if he had read a book called “Psychic Angles.”

Rather unwillingly, as it seemed to me, Klaw admitted that he had, and the girl displayed an immediate and marked interest in psychical matters. Klaw, however, though usually but too willing to discuss this, his pet subject, foiled her attempt to draw him into a technical discussion and rather obviously steered the conversation into a more general channel.

“Don’t let her get away on the bogey tack, Mr. Klaw,” said Haufmann, approvingly. “She’s a perfect demon for haunted chambers and so on.”

Laughingly the girl pleaded guilty to an interest in ghostly subjects. “But I’m not frightened about them!” she added, in pretended indignation. “I should just love to see a ghost.”

“Oh, Greta!” cried her sister. “What a horrid idea.”

“You have perhaps investigated cases yourself, Mr. Klaw?” asked Greta.

“Yes,” rumbled Klaw, “perhaps so. Who knows?”

Since he thus clearly showed his wish to drop the subject, the girl made a little humorously wry face, whereat her father laughed boisterously; and no more was said during the evening about ghosts. I could not well avoid noticing two things, however, in regard to Moris Klaw: one, his evident interest in Greta; and the other, a certain preoccupation which claimed him every now and again.

We left at about ten o’clock, declining the offer of the car, as we had ample time to walk to the station. Haufmann wanted to come along, but we dissuaded him, with the assurance that we could find the way without any difficulty. Klaw, especially, was very insistent on the point, and when at last we swung sharply down the avenue and, rounding the bend, lost sight of the house, he pulled up and said:

“For this opportunity, Mr. Searles, I have been waiting. It may not, of course, matter, but this house where the good Haufmann resides was formerly known as The Park.”

“What of that?” I asked, turning on him sharply.

“It is,” he replied, “celebrated as what foolish people call a haunted house. No doubt that is the reason why the name has been changed. As The Park it has been dealt with many times in the psychical journals.”

“The Park,” I mused. “Is it not included in that extraordinary work on the occult--‘Psychic Angles’--of which Miss Haufmann spoke to-night--the place where the monk was supposed to have been murdered, where an old antiquary died, and some young girl, too, if I remember rightly?”

“Yes,” replied Moris Klaw, “yes. I will tell you a secret. ‘Psychic Angles’ is a little book of my own, and so, of course, I know about this place.”

His words surprised me greatly, for the book was being generally talked about. He peered around him into the shadows and seemed to sniff the air suspiciously.

“Setting aside the question of any supernatural menace,” I said, “directly the servants find out, as they are sure to do from others in the neighbourhood, they will leave _en bloc_. It is a pleasant way servants have in such cases.”

“We must certainly tell him, the good Haufmann,” agreed Klaw, “and he will perhaps arrange to quit the place without letting the ladies to know of its reputation. That Miss Greta she has the sympathetic mind”--he tapped his forehead--“the plate so sensitive, the photo film so delicate! For her it is dangerous to remain. There is such a thing, Mr. Searles, as sympathetic suicide! That girl she is mediumistic. From The Park she must be removed.”

“There is no time to lose,” I said. “We must decide what to do to-night. Suppose you come along to my place?”

Moris Klaw agreed, and we resumed our walk through the poplar grove.

Although the night was very still, an eerie whispering went on without pause or cessation along the whole length of the avenue. Against the star-spangled sky the tall trees reared their shapes in a manner curiously suggestive of dead things. Or this fancy may have had birth in the associations of the place. It was a fatally easy matter mentally to fashion one of the poplars into the gaunt form of a monk; and no one, however unimaginative, being acquainted with the history of The Grove, could fail to find, in the soft and ceaseless voices of the trees, something akin to a woman’s broken sighs. In short, I was not sorry when the gate was passed, and we came out upon the high road.

Later, seated in my study, we discussed the business thoroughly. From my bookcase I took down “Psychic Angles” and passed it to Moris Klaw.

“There we are,” he rumbled, turning over the leaves. I read: “On August 8, 1858, a Fra Giulimo, of a peculiar religious brotherhood who occupied this house from 1851 to 1858, was found strangled at the foot of a poplar close by the entrance gate.” “I could never find out much about them, this brotherhood,” he added, looking up; “but they were, I believe, decent people. They left the place almost immediately after the crime. No arrest was ever made. Then”--referring to the book--“‘about the end of February or early in the March of 1863, a Mr. B---- J---- took the house. He was an antiquarian of European repute and a man of retired habits. With only two servants--an old soldier and his wife--he occupied The Park’--that is The Grove--‘from the spring of ’63 to the autumn of ’65.’ Then follow verbatim reports by the well-known Pepley of interviews with people who had heard Mr. J---- declare that a hushed voice sometimes called upon him by name in the night, from the poplar grove. Also, an interview with his manservant and with wife of latter, corroborating other statements. Mr. B---- J---- was found one September morning dead in the grove. Cause of death never properly established. The house next enters upon a period of neglect. It is empty; it is shunned. From ’65 right up to ’88 it stood so empty. It was then taken by a Mr. K----; but he only occupied it for two months, this K----. Three other tenants subsequently rented the place. Only one of them actually occupied it--for a week; the other, hearing, we presume, of its evil repute, never entered into residence. Seventeen years ago the last tragedy connected with the unpleasant Grove took place. An eccentric old bachelor took the house, and, in the summer of ’03, had a niece there to stay with him. The evidence clearly indicates to me that this unhappy one was highly neurotic--oh, clearly; so that the tragedy explains itself. She fell, or sprang, from her bedroom window to the drive one night in June, and was picked up quite dead at the foot of the first poplar in the grove. _Sacré!_ it is a morgue, that house!”

He returned the book and sat watching me in silence for some moments.

“Did you spend any time in the house, yourself?” I asked.

“On four different occasions, Mr. Searles! It is only from certain of the rooms that the whispering is audible, and then only if the windows are open. You will notice, though, that all the tragedies occurred in the warm months when the windows would be so open.”

“Did you note anything supernormal in this whispering?”

“Nothing. You have read my explanation.”