by Sax Rohmer
Sir James made no sign. Moris Klaw continued —
“I gathered, then, that the one who sometimes lurked in the Jacobite hiding-place and who, somehow, made the demon laughter, and the other phenomena, sought one end. It was to cause you to leave Grange and to live in Friars House! Beyond so far, my science could not show me. I assisted, therefore, the project of the lurker; and came myself, too, in order to watch, my friend, to guard and to spy!
“His gramophone I found, examined, and replaced. It had a clockwork attachment, very ingenious, which both started and stopped it; there was little or no scraping. To-night, from his room, unknown to him, I removed the instrument from its case which lay hidden at the bottom of his trunk. Yes! I stole his key! I am the old fox! Why did he bring it here? I cannot reply. Perhaps he meant again to use it; his future projects are dark to me, but their object is all too light.”
Sir James groaned.
“Old Clem!” he whispered, “and how I trusted him!”
“He did not quite believe in my science,” resumed Moris Klaw, “but he did not know that, hidden, I slept almost beside him as he sat, planning, in this very room! From his own bad mind I secured my second negative; and it showed me the death-trap of some bad old son of Mother Church! At Grange there was but the Jacobite hiding-place, but here was the devilry of feudal times! I returned to London. Why? To learn if my suspicions were well founded. Yes! You may, or may not, be aware; but if you die childless, the wicked Clement inherits Grange!”
“I knew that,” whispered Sir James.
“Ah! you knew? So. I returned to here, for, even at that time, I suspected that your accidental death was the object of removal! Then I secured it, my second negative. Biding my time, I explored that death-smelling place. Its wicked machinery had been freshly oiled! Ah! he knew its secrets well, the old house that he hoped to inherit!
“One night, all innocent, as you sat here, with other guests, he would have blundered upon that doorway! And you, the host, would have led the search-party! But I saw that he feared to move whilst I remained, and so I played the ghost upon him with his own spook!”
Sir James Leyland looked up. His bronzed face was transformed with emotion.
“Mr. Klaw,” he said, huskily, “why did you lay so much emphasis upon the words, ‘the seventh step’?”
Moris Klaw shrugged, replying simply:
“Because there is no seventh step — only the mouth of a well!”
Episode IX
CASE OF THE VEIL OF ISIS
I
I have made no attempt, in these chronicles, to arrange the cases of my remarkable friend, Moris Klaw, in sections. Yet, as has recently been pointed out to me, they seem naturally to fall into two orders. There were those in which he appeared in the role of criminal investigator, and in which he was usually associated with Inspector Grimsby. There was another class of inquiry in which the criminal element was lacking; mysteries which never came under the notice of New Scotland Yard.
Since Moris Klaw’s methods were, if not supernatural, at any rate supernormal, I have been asked if he ever, to my knowledge, inquired into a case which proved insusceptible of a natural explanation — which fell strictly within the province of the occult.
To that I answer that I am aware of several; but I have refrained from including them because readers of these papers would be unlikely to appreciate the nature of Klaw’s investigations outside the sphere of ordinary natural laws. Those who are curious upon the point cannot do better than consult the remarkable work by Moris Klaw entitled Psychic Angles.
But there was one case with which I found myself concerned that I am disposed to include, for it fell between the provinces of the natural and supernatural in such a way that it might, with equal legitimacy, be included under either head. On the whole, I am disposed to bracket it with the case of the headless mummies.
I will take leave to introduce you, then, to the company which met at Otter Brearley’s house one night in August.
“This is most truly amazing,” Moris Klaw was saying; “and I am indebted to my good friend Searles” — he inclined his sparsely covered head in my direction— “for the opportunity to be one of you. It is a seance? Yes and no. But there is a mummy in it — and those mummies are so instructive!”
He extracted the scent-spray from his pocket and refreshed his yellow brow with verbena.
“How to be regretted that my daughter is in Paris,” he continued, his rumbling voice echoing queerly about the room. “She loves them like a mother — those mummies! Ah, Mr. Brearley, this will cement your great reputation!”
Otter Brearley shook his head.
“I am not yet prepared to make it public property,” he declared, slowly. “No one, outside the present circle, knows of my discovery.
I do not wish it to go further — at present.”
He glanced around the table, his prominent blue eyes passing from myself to Moris Klaw and from Klaw to the clean-cut, dark face of Dr. Fairbank. The latter, scarce heeding his host’s last words, sat watching how the shaded light played, tenderly, amid the soft billows of Ailsa Brearley’s wonderful hair.
“Shall you make it the subject of a paper?” he asked suddenly.
“My dear Dr. Fairbank!” rumbled Moris Klaw, solemnly, “if you had been paying attention to our good friend you would have heard him say that he was not prepared, at present, to make public his wonderful discovery.”
“Sorry!” said Fairbank, turning to Brearley. “But if it is not to be made public I don’t altogether follow the idea. What do you intend, Brearley?”
“In what way?” I asked.
“In every way possible!”
Dr. Fairbank sat back in his chair and looked thoughtful.
“Rather a comprehensive scheme?”
Brearley toyed with the bundle of notes under his hand.
“I have already,” he said, “exhaustively examined seven of the possibilities; the eighth, and — I believe, the last — remains to be considered.”
“Listen now to me, Mr. Brearley,” said Moris Klaw, wagging a long finger. “I am here, the old curious, and find myself in delightful company. But until this evening I know nothing of your work except that I have read all your books. For me you will be so good as to outline all the points — yes?”
Otter Brearley mutely sought permission of the company, and turned the leaves of his manuscript. All men have an innate love of “talking shop,” but few can make such talk of general interest. Brearley was an exception in this respect. He loved to talk of Egypt, of the Pharaohs, of the temples, of the priesthood and its mysteries; but others loved to hear him. That made all the difference.
“The discovery,” he now began, “upon which I have blundered — for pure accident, alone, led me to it — assumes its great importance by reason of the absolute mystery surrounding certain phases of Egyptian worship. In the old days, Fairbank, you will recall that it was my supreme ambition to learn the secrets of Isis-worship as practised in early Egyptian times. Save for impostors, and legitimate imaginative writers, no one has yet lifted the veil of Isis. That mystical ceremony by which a priest was consecrated to the goddess, or made an arch adept, was thought to be hopelessly lost, or, by others, to be a myth devised by the priesthood to awe the ignorant masses. In fact, we know little of the entire religion but its outward form. Of that occult lore so widely attributed to its votaries we know nothing — absolutely nothing! By we, I mean students in general. I, individually, have made a step, if not a stride, into that holy of holies!”
“Mind you don’t lose yourself!” said Fairbank, lightly.
But, professionally, he was displeased with Brearley’s drawn face and with the feverish brightness of his eyes. So much was plain for all to see. In the eyes of Ailsa Brearley, so like, yet so unlike, her brother’s, he read understanding of his displeasure, I think, together with a pathetic appeal.
Brearley waved his long, white hand carelessly.
“Rest assured
of that, doctor!” he replied. “The labyrinth in which I find myself is intricate, I readily admit; but all my steps have been well considered. To return, Mr. Klaw” — addressing the latter— “I have secured the mummy of one of those arch adepts! That he was one is proved by the papyrus, presumably in his own writing, which lay upon his breast! I unwrapped the mummy in Egypt, where it now reposes; but the writing I brought back with me, and have recently deciphered. A glance had showed me that it was not the usual excerpts from the Book of the Dead. Six months’ labour has proved it to be a detailed account of his initiation into the inner mysteries!”
“Is such a papyrus unique?” I asked.
“Unique!” cried Moris Klaw. “Name of a little blue man! It is priceless!”
“But why,” I pursued, “should this priest, alone amongst the many who must have been so initiated, have left an account of the ceremony?”
“It was forbidden to divulge any part, any word, of it, Searles!” said Brearley. “Departure from this law was visited with fearful punishments in this world and dire penalties in the next. Khamus, for so this priest was named, well knew this. But some reason which, I fear, can never be known, prompted him to write the papyrus. It is probable, if not certain, that no eye but his, and mine, has read what is written there.”
A silence of a few seconds followed his words.
“Yes,” rumbled Klaw presently; “it is undoubtedly a discovery of extraordinary importance, this. You agree, my friend?”
I nodded.
“That’s evident,” I replied. “But I cannot altogether get the hang of the ceremony itself, Brearley. That is the point upon which I am particularly hazy.”
“To read you the entire account in detail,” Brearley resumed, “would occupy too long, and would almost certainly confuse you. But the singular thing is this: Khamus distinctly asserts that the goddess appeared to him. His writing is eminently sane and reserved, and his account of the ceremony, up to that point, highly interesting. Now, I have tested the papyrus itself — though no possibility of fraud is really admissible, and I have been able to confirm many of the statements made therein. There is only one point, it seems to me, remaining to be settled.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“Whether, as a result of the ceremony described, Khamus did see Isis, or whether he merely imagined he did!”
No one spoke for a moment. Then —
“My friend,” said Moris Klaw, “I have a daughter whom I have named Isis. Why did I name her Isis? Mr. Brearley, you must know that that name has a mystic and beautiful significance. But I will say something — I am glad that my daughter is not here! Mr. Brearley — beware! Beware, I say: you play with burning fires; my friend — beware!”
His words impressed us all immensely; for there was something underlying them more portentous than appeared upon the surface.
Fairbank stared at Brearley, hard.
“Do I understand,” he began, quietly, “that you admit the first possibility?”
“Certainly!” replied Brearley, with conviction.
“You are prepared to admit the existence, as an entity, of Isis?”
“I am prepared to admit the existence of anything until it can be proved not to exist!”
“Then, admitting the existence of Isis, what should you assume it, or her, to be?”
“That is not a matter for presumption; it is a matter for inquiry!”
The doctor glanced quickly toward Ailsa Brearley, and her beautiful face was troubled.
“And this inquiry — how should you propose to conduct it?”
“In surroundings as nearly as possible identical with those described in the papyrus,” replied Brearley, with growing excitement. “I should follow the ceremony, word by word, as Khamus did!”
His eyes gleamed with pent-up enthusiasm. We four listeners, again stricken silent, watched him; and again it was the doctor who broke the silence.
“Is the ceremony spoken?”
“In the first half there is a long prayer, which is chanted.”
“But Egyptian, as a spoken language, is lost, surely?”
“The exact pronunciation, or accent, is lost, of course; but there are many who can speak it. I can, for instance.”
“And I,” rumbled Moris Klaw, gloomily. “But these special surroundings? Eh, my friend?”
“I have spent a year in searching for the necessary things, as specified in the writing. At last, my collection is complete. Some of the things I have had made, in the proper materials mentioned. These materials, in some cases, have been exceedingly difficult to procure. But now I have a complete shrine of Isis fitted up! Khamus’s initiation took place in a small chamber of which he gives a concise and detailed account. It is because my duplicate of this chamber is ready that I have asked you to meet me here to-night.”
“How long have you been at work upon this inquiry?” said Fairbank.
He put the question as he might have put one relating to a patient’s symptoms; and this Brearley detected in his tone, with sudden resentment.
“Fairbank,” he said, huskily, “I believe you think me insane!” With his pale, drawn face and long, fair hair, he certainly looked anything but normal, as he sat with bright, staring eyes fixed upon the other across the table.
“My dear chap,” replied the doctor, soothingly, “what a strange idea! My question was prompted by a professional spirit, I will admit, for I thought you had been sticking to this business too closely. You are the last man in the world I should expect to go mad, Brearley, but I should not care to answer for your nerves if you don’t give this Isis affair a rest.”
Brearley smiled, and waved his hand characteristically. “Excuse me, Fairbank,” he said, “but to the average person my ideas do seem fantastic, I know. That is what makes me so touchy on the point, I suppose.”
“You are hoping for too much from what is at most only a wild conjecture, Brearley. Your translation of the manuscript, alone, is a sufficiently notable achievement. If I were in your place, I should leave the occult business to the psychical societies. ‘Let the cobbler,’ you know.”
“It has gone too far for that,” returned Brearley, “and I must see it through, now.”
“You are putting too much into it,” said the doctor, severely. “I want you to promise me that if nothing results from your final experiment, you will drop the whole inquiry.”
Brearley frowned thoughtfully.
“Do you really think I am overdoing it?” he asked.
“Sure,” was the answer. “Drop the whole thing for a month or two.”
“That is impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because the ceremony must take place upon the first night of Panoi, the tenth month of the Sacred Sothic year. This we take to correspond to the April of the Julian year.”
“Yes,” rumbled Moris Klaw, “it is to-night!”
“Why!” I cried, “of course it is! Do you mean, Brearley, that you are going to conduct your experiment now?”
“Exactly,” was the calm reply; “and I have asked you all — Mr. Moris Klaw in particular — in order that it may take place in the presence of competent witnesses!”
Moris Klaw shook his massive head and pulled at his scanty, toneless beard, in a very significant manner. All of us were vaguely startled, I think, and through my mind the idea flashed that the first of April was a date pathetically appropriate for such an undertaking. Frankly, I was beginning to entertain serious doubts regarding Brearley’s sanity.
“I have given the servants a holiday,” said the latter. “They are at a theatre in town; so there is no possibility of the experiment being interrupted.”
Something of his enthusiasm, unnatural though it seemed, strangely enough began to communicate itself to me.
“Come upstairs,” he continued, “and I will explain what we all have to do.”
Moris Klaw squirted verbena upon his brow.
“Doctor Fairbank!”
Fairb
ank, startled by the touch on his arm, stopped. It was Ailsa Brearley who had dropped behind her brother and now stood confronting us. In the dense shadows of the corridor one could barely distinguish her figure, but a stray beam of light touched one side of her pure oval face and burnished her fair hair.
She wanted help, guidance. I had read it in her eyes before. I was sorry that her sweet lips should have that pathetic little droop.
“Doctor Fairbank! I have wanted to ask you all night — do you think he—”
She could not speak the words, and stood biting her lips, with eyes averted.
“Miss Brearley,” he replied, “I do, certainly, fear that your brother is liable to a nervous breakdown at any moment. He has applied his mind too closely to this inquiry, and has studiously surrounded himself with a morbid atmosphere.”
Ailsa Brearley was now watching him, anxiously.
“Should we allow him to go on with it?”
“I fear any attempt to prevent him would prove most detrimental, in his present condition.”
“But—” There was clearly something else which she wanted to say. “But, apart from that—” she suddenly turned to Moris Klaw, instinctively it almost seemed— “Mr. Klaw — is this — ceremony right?”
He peered at her through his pince-nez.
“In what way, my dear Miss Brearley — how right?”
“Well — what I mean is — it amounts to idolatry, does it not!”
I started. It was a point of view which had not, hitherto, occurred to me.
“You probably understand the nature of the thing better than we do, Miss Brearley,” said Fairbank. “Do you mean that it involves worship of Isis?”