Chapter II

Some few minutes subsequent to retiring--or so it seemed to me; a longer time actually had elapsed--I was aroused by the ringing of my telephone bell. I scrambled sleepily out of bed and ran to the instrument.

Coram was the caller. And now, fully awake, I listened with an ever-growing wonder to his account of that which had prompted him to ring me up. Briefly, it amounted to this: some mysterious incident, particulars of which he omitted, had aroused Paxton from his sleep. Seeking the cause of the disturbance, the artist had unlocked the studio door and gone out into the garden. He was absent but a moment and never out of earshot of the door; yet, upon his return, _the statue of Nicris had vanished!_

“I have not hesitated to ’phone through to Wapping,” concluded Coram, “and get a special messenger sent to Moris Klaw. You see, the matter is urgent. If the statue cannot be recovered, its loss may spell ruin for Paxton. He had heard me speak of Moris Klaw and of the wonders he worked in the Greek Room mysteries, and, accordingly, called me up. I knew, if Klaw came, you would be anxious to be present.”

“Certainly,” I replied, “I wouldn’t miss one of his inquiries for anything. Shall I meet you at Paxton’s?”

“Yes.”

I lost little time in dressing. From Coram’s brief account, the mystery appeared to be truly a dark one. Would Moris Klaw respond to this midnight appeal? There was little chance of a big fee, for Paxton was not a rich man; but in justice to the remarkable person whom it is my privilege to present to you in these papers, I must add that monetary considerations seemingly found no place in Klaw’s philosophy. He acted, I believe, from sheer love of the work; and this affair, with its bizarre details--the ancient girdle of the dancing girl--the fear of the model, who had declared that the statue moved--was such, I thought, as must appeal to him.

Ten minutes later I was at Paxton’s house. He and Coram were in the hall, and Coram admitted me.

“Do you mean,” he asked of Paxton, pursuing a conversation which my advent had interrupted, “that the statue melted into the empty air?”

“The double doors opening on to the street were securely locked and barred; that of the garden was also locked; I was in the garden and not ten yards from the studio,” was Paxton’s reply. “Nevertheless, Nicris had vanished, leaving no trace behind!”

Incredible though the story appeared, its confirmation was to be found in the speaker’s face. I was horrified to see how haggard he looked.

“It will ruin me!” he said, and reiterated the statement again and again.

“But, my dear fellow,” I cried, “surely you have not given up hope of recovering the statue? After all, such a robbery as this can scarcely have been perpetrated without leaving some clue behind.”

“Robbery!” repeated Paxton, looking at me strangely; “you would be less confident that it is a case of robbery, Searles, if you had heard what I heard!”

I glanced at Coram, but he merely shrugged his shoulders.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Then Coram has not told you?”

“He has told me that something aroused you in the night and that you left the studio to investigate the matter.”

“Correct, so far. Something did arouse me; and the thing was a voice!”

“A voice?”

“It would be, I suppose, about two hours after you had gone, and I was soundly asleep in the studio, when I suddenly awoke and sat up to listen, for it seemed to me that I heard a cry immediately outside the door.”

“What kind of cry?”

“Of that I was not, at first, by any means certain; but after a brief interval the cry was repeated. It sounded more like the voice of a boy than that of a man and it uttered but one word: ‘Nicris!’”

“And then?”

“I sprang on to the floor and stood for a moment in doubt--the thing seemed so uncanny. The electric light is not, as you know, installed in the studio, or I should have certainly switched it on. For possibly a minute I hesitated, and then, as I pulled the curtains aside and stood by the door to listen, for the third time the cry was repeated and was now coming indisputably from immediately outside.”

“You refer to the door that opens on to the garden?”

“Exactly--close to which stands my bed. This, then, decided me. Taking up the small revolver which I have always kept handy since Nicris was completed, I unlocked the door and stepped out into the garden----”

A vehicle, cab or car, was heard to draw up outside the house. Came the sound of a rumbling voice. Coram sprang to the door.

“Moris Klaw!” I cried.

“Good morning, Mr. Coram!” said the strange voice, from the darkness outside. “Good morning, Mr. Searles!”

Moris Klaw entered.

He wore his flat-topped brown bowler of effete pattern; he wore his long, shabby, caped coat; and from beneath it gleamed the pointed glossy toe-caps of his continental boots. Through his gold-rimmed glasses he peered into the shadows of the hall. His scanty, colourless beard appeared less adequate than ever to clothe the massive chin. The dim light rendered his face more cadaverous and more yellow even than usual.

“And this,” he proceeded, as the anxious sculptor came forward, “is Mr. Paxton, who has lost his statue? Good morning, Mr. Paxton!”

He bowed, removing the bowler and revealing his great high brow. Coram was about to reclose the door.

“Ah, no!” Moris Klaw checked him. “My daughter is to come yet with my cushion!”

Paxton stared, not comprehending, but stared yet harder when Isis Klaw appeared, carrying a huge red cushion. She was wrapped in a cloak which effectually concealed her lithe figure, and from the raised hood her darkly beautiful face looked out with bewitching effect. She divided between Coram and myself one of her dazzling smiles.

“It is Mr. Paxton,” said her father, indicating the sculptor. Then, indicating the girl, “It is my daughter, Isis. Isis will help us to look for Nicris. Why am I here, an old fool who ought to be asleep? Because of this girdle your statue wore. I so well remember when it was dug up. I cannot know its history, but be sure it is evil. From the beginning, please, Mr. Paxton!”

“I’m awfully indebted to you! Won’t you come in and sit down?” said Paxton, glancing at the girl in bewilderment.

“No, no!” replied Klaw, “let us stand. It is good to stand, and stand upright; for it is because he can do this that man is superior to the other animals!”

Coram and I knew Klaw’s mannerisms, but I could see that Paxton thought him to be a unique kind of lunatic. Nevertheless, he narrated something of the foregoing up to the point reached at Moris Klaw’s arrival.

“Proceed slowly, now,” said Klaw. “You left the door open behind you?”

“Yes; but I was never more than ten yards from it. It would have been physically impossible for any one to remove the statue unknown to me. You must remember that it was no light weight.”

“One moment,” I interrupted. “Are you sure that the statue was in its place before you came out?”

“Certain! There was a bright moon, and the figure was the first thing my eyes fell upon when I pulled the curtain aside.”

“Did you _touch_ it?” rumbled Moris Klaw.

“No. There was no occasion to do so.”

“How much to be regretted, Mr. Paxton! The sense of touch is so exquisite a thing!”

We all wondered at his words.

“Stepping just outside the door,” Paxton resumed, “I looked to right and left. There was no one in sight. Then I walked to the wall--a matter of some ten yards--and, pulling myself up by my hands, looked over into the street. It was deserted, save for a constable on the opposite corner. I know him, slightly, and his presence convinced me that no one could either have come into or gone out of the garden by way of the wall. I did not call him, but immediately returned to the studio door.”

“In all, you were absent from the studio about how long?” asked Moris Klaw.

“Not a second over half a minute!”

“And on returning once more to the door?”

“A single glance showed me that the statue had gone!”

“Good Heavens!” I said; “it sounds impossible. Was the constable on point duty?”

“He was; there is always an officer there. He stood in sight of the double doors opening on to the street during the whole time, so that ‘Nicris’ unquestionably came out by way of the garden or melted into thin air. Since the only exit from the garden also opens on to the street, how, but by magic, can the statue have been removed from the premises?”

“Ah, my friend,” said Moris Klaw, “you talk of magic as one talks of onions! How little you know”--he swept wide his arms, looking upward--“of the phenomena of the two atmospheres! Proceed!”

“The throne,” continued Paxton, who was becoming impressed as was evident by the uncanny sense of power which emanated in some way from Moris Klaw, “remains.”

“And the statue--it was attached to it?”

“As to the figure being attached, I may say that it was only partially so. Materials for completing the work were to have arrived to-day.”

“How long would it have taken to detach it?” growled Klaw.

“Granting some knowledge of the nature of the work, not long--for, as I have said, in this respect it was incomplete. Half an hour or so, I should have believed!”

“Then,” I said, “the matter, in brief, stands thus: In the course of thirty seconds, during which time a constable was in view of one entrance and you were ten yards from the other, someone detached the statue from the throne--an operation involving half an hour’s skilled labour--and, unseen by yourself or the officer, removed it from the premises.”

“Oh, the thing is impossible!” groaned Paxton. “There is something unearthly in the affair. I wish I had never set eyes upon that accursed girdle!”

“Curse not the girdle,” rumbled Moris Klaw. “Curse instead its wearer, and inform us, on finding Nicris to be missing, what did you do?”

“I hastily searched the studio. A brief investigation convinced me that neither statue nor thief was concealed there. I then came out, locked the door, and, having examined the garden, hailed the constable. He had been on duty for four hours at that point and had observed absolutely nothing of an unusual nature. He saw you fellows come out by the garden entrance, and from that time until I hailed him, nothing, he declared, had come in or gone out!”

“He heard no cry?”

“No; it was not loud enough to be audible from the corner.”

“Lastly,” said Klaw, “have you informed Scotland Yard?”

“No,” answered the sculptor; “nor will the constable lodge information; moreover, I withheld from him the object of my inquiries. If this business gets into the papers I shall be a ruined man!”

“I have hopes,” Klaw assured him, “that it will get in no papers. Let us proceed now to the scene of these wonderful happenings. It is my custom, Mr. Paxton, to lay my old head down upon the scene of a mystery, and from the air I can sometimes recover the key to the labyrinth!”

“So I have heard,” said Paxton.

“You have heard so, yes? You shall see! Lead on, Mr. Paxton! No time must be wasted. I am another like Napoleon, and can sleep on an instant. I do not know insomnia! Lead on. Isis, my child, be careful that it brushes against no object in passing--my odically sterilized cushion!”

We proceeded to the studio.

“I feel that I am responsible for dragging you here at this unearthly hour,” said Paxton to Isis Klaw.

She turned her fine eyes upon him.

“My father is indebted for the opportunity,” she replied; “and since he has need of me, I am here. I, too, am indebted.”

Her supreme self-possession and tone of finality silenced the artist. So far as I could see, everything in the studio was exactly as before, save that Nicris’s throne was vacant. The top of the studio was partially glazed, and Moris Klaw peered up at it earnestly.

“From above,” he rumbled, “I should wish to look down into below. How do I reach it?”

“The only stepladder is that in the studio,” answered Paxton. “I will bring it out.”

He did so. The gray light of dawn was creeping into the sky, and against that sombre background we watched Moris Klaw crawling about the roof like some giant spider.

“Did you find anything?” asked Paxton, anxiously, as the investigator descended.

“I find what I look for,” was the reply; “and no man is entitled to find more. Isis, my child, place that cushion in the ebony chair.”

The girl stepped on to the dais, and disposed the red cushion as directed.

“You see,” explained Morris Klaw, “whoever has robbed you, Mr. Paxton, runs some one great danger, however clever his plans. There is, in every criminal scheme, one little point that only Fate can decide--either to hitch or to smooth out--to bring success and riches or whistling policemen and Brixton Gaol! Upon that so critical point his or her mind will concentrate at the critical moment. The critical moment, here, was that of getting Nicris out of your studio.

“I sleep upon that throne where she reclined--the ivory dancer. This sensitive plate”--he tapped his brow--“will reproduce a negative of that critical moment as it seemed in the mind of the one we look for. Isis, return in the cab that waits and be here again at six o’clock.”

He placed his quaint bowler upon a table and laid beside it his black cloak. Then, a ramshackle figure in shabby tweed, reclined upon the big ebony chair, his head against the cushion.

“Place my cloak about me, Isis.”

The girl did so.

“Good morning, my child! Good morning, Mr. Searles! Good morning, Mr. Coram and Mr. Paxton!”

He closed his eyes.

“Excuse me,” began Paxton.

Isis placed her finger to her lips, and signed to us to withdraw silently.

“Ssh!” she whispered. “He is asleep!”