Chapter V

One of my visits to the Wapping curio shop of Moris Klaw was made in company with Mr. Halesowen, who, with the others mentioned in the foregoing narrative, I subsequently had met.

Somewhere amid the misty gloom of this place, where loot of a hundred ages, of every spot from pole to pole, veils its identity in the darkness, sits a large gray parrot. Faint perfumes and scuffling sounds tell of hidden animal life near to the visitor; but the parrot proclaims itself stridently:

“Moris Klaw! Moris Klaw! The devil’s come for you!”

That signal brings Moris Klaw from his hiding place. He shuffles into the shop, a figure appropriate to its surroundings. Imagine a tall, stooping man, enveloped in a very faded blue dressing gown. His skin is but a half-shade lighter than that of a Chinaman; his hair, his shaggy brows, his scanty beard, defy one to name their colour. He wears pince-nez.

When upon this particular occasion I introduced my companion, and Moris Klaw acknowledged the introduction in his rumbling voice, I saw Halesowen stare.

Klaw produced a scent spray from somewhere and sprayed verbena upon his high yellow brow.

“It is very stuffy--in this shop!” he explained. “Isis! Isis! Bring for my visitors some iced drinks!”

He invoked a goddess, and a goddess appeared: a brilliantly beautiful brunette, with delightfully curved scarlet lips and flashing eyes whose fire the gloom could not dim.

“Good God!” cried Halesowen--and fell back.

“My daughter Isis,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “This is Mr. Halesowen, from whom we rescue the Egyptian potsherd!”

“_What!_”

Halesowen leant forward across the counter.

“You recognize my daughter?” continued Moris Klaw; “but not Doctor Zeda, eh? Or only his poor old voice? You gave us great trouble, Mr. Halesowen. Once, you came in just as Isis, who has climbed on to your balcony, is about to take the potsherd----”

“There was no one in the room!”

“_I_ was in the room!” interrupted the girl, coolly. “I was draped in black from head to foot, and I slipped behind the window hangings, unseen, whilst you fumbled with your lamp!”

“It was indiscreet,” continued Moris Klaw, “and made it harder for me; because, afterward, you lock up the treasure and my search is unavailing. Also, I am interrupted. Pah! I am clumsy! I waste time! But, remember, I offered to buy it!”

“Suppose,” said Halesowen, slowly, “I give you both in charge?”

“You cannot,” was the placid reply; “for you cannot say how you came into possession of the sherd! Professor Sheraton was in a similar forked stick--and that is where _I_ come in!”

“What! you were acting for him?”

“Certainly! I happen to be in Egypt at the time, and he is a friend of mine. Your thief, Ali, left a small piece of the pot behind, and I am entrusted to make it complete!”

“You have succeeded!” said Halesowen, grimly, all the time furtively watching the beautiful Isis.

“Yes,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “I am the instrument of poetic justice. Isis, those cool beverages. Let us drink to poetic justice!”

He sprayed his ample brow with verbena.

In conclusion, you may ask if the value of the potsherd justified the elaborate and costly mode of its recovery.

I reply: Upon what does the present fame of Professor Sheraton rest? His “New Key to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.” Upon what is that work founded? Upon the hieroglyphics of the Potsherd of Anubis, which (no questions being asked of so distinguished a savant) was recently acquired from the Professor by the nation at a cost of £15,000!

THIRD EPISODE. CASE OF THE CRUSADER’S AX