Having rebolted the door, we rejoined Moris Klaw in the Greek Room. He was kneeling beside Grimsby in the dim light--and Grimsby, his face ghastly pale, was sitting up and drinking from a flask!
“I am in time!” said Moris Klaw. “He has only fainted!”
“It was the ghost!” whispered the Scotland Yard man. “My God! I’m prepared for anything human--but when the lightning came and I saw that white thing--playing the harp----”
Coram turned aside and was about to pick up the harp, which lay upon the floor near, when--
“Ah!” cried Moris Klaw, “do not touch it! It is death!”
Coram started back as though he had been stung as Grimsby very unsteadily got upon his feet.
“Turn up lights,” directed Moris Klaw, “and I will show you!”
The curator went out to the switchboard and the Greek Room became brightly illuminated. The ramshackle figure of Moris Klaw seemed to be invested with triumphant majesty. Behind the pebbles his eyes gleamed.
“Observe,” he said, “I raise the harp from the floor.” He did so. “And I live. For why? Because I do not take hold upon it in a natural manner--by the top! I take it by the side! Conway and Macalister took hold upon it at the top; and where are they--Conway and Macalister?”
“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.
