The dream detective: being some account of the methods of Moris Klaw (26 page)

CASE OF THE VEIL OF ISIS 303

Fairbank's science and my own semi-scepticism were but weapons of sand against it.

The door opened silently, admitting a flood of the soft moon-like radiance. And Ailsa Brearley entered !

Her slim figure was bathed in light; her fair hair, unbound, swept like a gleaming torrent about her shoulders. She looked magnificently, unnaturally beautiful. A diaphanous veil was draped over her face. From her radiant figure I turned away my head in sudden, stark fear!

Fairbank, clutching the arms of his chair, seemed to strive to look away, too.

Her widely opened eyes, visible even through the veil, were awful in their supernormal, significant beauty. Was it Ailsa Brearley? I clenched my fists convulsively; I felt my reason tottering. As the luminous figure, so terrible in its perfect loveliness, moved slowly toward the inner door, with set gaze that was not for any about her, Doctor Fairbank wrenched himself from his chair and leapt forward.

"Ailsa!"

His voice came in a hoarse shriek. But it was drowned by a rumbling roar from Moris Klaw.

"Look away! Look away!" he shouted. "The good God! Do not look at her! Look away!"

The warning came too late. Fairbank had all but reached her side, when she turned her eyes upon him —looking fully in his face.

With no sound or cry he went down as though felled with a mighty blow!

She passed to the door of the inner room. It swung open noiselessly. A stifling cloud of some pungent perfume swept into the study; and the door reclosed.

"Fairbank!" I whispered, huskily. "My God! he's dead!"

Moris Klaw sprang forward to where Fairbank, clearly visible in the soft light, lay huddled upon the floor.

"Lift him!" he hissed. "We must get him out— before she returns—you understand?—before she returns!"

Bending together, we raised the doctor's inanimate body and half dragged, half carried him from the room. On the landing we laid him down and stood panting. A voice, clear and sweet, was speaking. I recognized neither the language nor the voice. But each liquid syllable thrilled me like an icy shock. I met Moris Klaw's gaze, set upon me through the pince-nez.

"Do not listen, my friend!" he said.

Raising Fairbank, we dragged him into the first room we came to—and Klaw locked the door.

"Here we remain," he rumbled, "until something has gone back where it came from!"

Fairbank lay motionless at our feet.

Presently came the rattling.

"It is the sistrum," whispered Moris Klaw, "the sacred instrument of the Isis temples."

CASE OF THE VEIL OF ISIS 305

The sound passed—and faded.

"Searles! Fairbank!"—it was Brearley's voice, sobbingly intense—"do not touch her! Do not look at her!"

The study doorcrashed open and I heard his sandals pattering on the landing.

"Fairbank! Mr. Klaw! Good God! Answer me! Tell me you are safe!"

Moris Klaw unlocked the door.

Brearley, his face white as death and bathed in perspiration, stood outside. As Klaw appeared, he leapt forward, wild eyed.

"Quick! Did any one "

"Fairbank!" I said, huskily.

Brearley pushed into the room and turned onthe light. Fairbank, very pale, lay propped against an armchair. Moris Klaw immediately dropped on his knee beside him and felt his heart.

"Ah, the good God! He is alive!" he whispered. "Get some water—no brandy, my friend—water. Then look to your sister!"

Brearley plunged his trembling hands into his hair and tugged at it distractedly.

"How was I to know!" he moaned, "how was I to know! There is water in the bottle, Mr. Klaw. Searles will come with me. I must look for Ailsa!"

A bizarre figure, in his linen robe, he ran off. Moris Klaw waved me to follow him.

The door of his sister's room was closed.

He knocked, but there was no reply. He turned the knob and went in, whilst I waited in the corridor.

"Ailsa!" I heard him call, and again, "Ailsa!" then, following an interval, "Are you all right, dear?" he whispered.

"Oh, thank Heaven it is finished!" came a murmur in Ailsa Brearley's soft voice. "It is finished, is it not?"

"Quite finished," he answered.

"Just look at my hair!" she went on, with returning animation. "My head was so bad—I think that was why I took it down. Then I must have dropped off to sleep."

"All right, dear," said Brearley. "I want you to come downstairs; be as quick as you can."

He rejoined me in the corridor.

"She was lying with her hair strewn all over the pillow!" he whispered, "and she had been burning something—ashes in the hearth "

Ailsa came out. She seemed suddenly to observe her brother's haggard face.

"Is there anything the matter?" she said, quickly. "Oh! has something dreadful happened?"

"No, dear," he answered, reassuringly. "Only Doctor Fairbank was overcome "

She turned very pale.

"He is not ill?"

"No. He became faint. You can come and see for yourself."

CASE OF THE VEIL OF ISIS 307

Very quickly we all hurried downstairs. Moris Klaw, on his knees beside the doctor, was trying to force something between his clenched teeth. Ailsa, with a little cry, ran forward and knelt upon the other side of him.

" Ralph!" she whispered; " Ralph!"—and smoothed the hair back from his forehead.

He sighed deeply, and with an effort swallowed the draught which Klaw held to his lips. A moment later he opened his eyes, glaring wildly into Ailsa's face.

"Ralph!" she said, brokenly.

Then, realizing how tenderly she had spoken— using his Christian name—she hung her graceful head in hot confusion. But he had heard her. And the wild light died from his eyes. He took both her hands in his own and held them fast; then, rather unsteadily, he stood up.

As his features came more fully into the light, we all saw that a small bruise discoloured his forehead, squarely between the brows.

Then Brearley, who had been back into the study, came running, crying:

"The papyrus! And my translation! Gone!"

I thought of the ashes in Ailsa Brearley's room.

IV

"My friends," rumbled Moris Klaw, impressively, "we are fortunate. We have passed through scorching fires unscathed!"

He applied himself with vigour to the operating of the scent spray.

"God forgive me!" said Brearley. "What did I do?"

"I will tell you, my friend," replied Klaw; "you clothed a thought in the beautiful form which you knew as your sister! Ah! You stare! Ritual, my friends, is the soul of what the ignorant call magic. With the sacred incense, kyphi (yes, I detected it!), you invoked secret powers. Those powers, Mr. Brearley, were but thoughts. All such forces are thoughts.

"Thoughts are things—and you gathered together in this house, by that ancient formula, a thought thing created by generations of worshippers who have worshipped the moon!

"The light that we saw was only the moonlight, the sounds that we heard were thought-sounds. But so powerful was this mighty thought-force, this centuries-old power which you loosed upon us, that it drove out Miss Ailsa's own thoughts from her mind, bringing what she mistook for sleep; and it implanted itself there!

"She was transformed by that mighty power which for a time dwelled within her. She was as powerful, as awful, as a goddess! None might look upon her and be sane. Hypnotism has similarities with the ancient science of thought—yes! Suggestion is the secret of all so-called occult phenomena!"

CASE OF THE VEIL OF ISIS 309

With his eyes gleaming oddly, he stepped forward, resting his long white hands upon Fairbanks shoulders.

"Doctor," he rumbled, "you have a bruise on your forehead."

"Have I?" said Fairbank, in surprise. "I hadn't noticed it."

"Because it is not a physical bruise; it is a mental bruise, physically reflected! Nearly were you slain, my friend—oh, so nearly! But another force—as great as the force of ancient thought—weakened the blow. Doctor Fairbank, it is fortunate that Miss Ailsa loves you!"

His frank words startled us all.

"Look well at the shape of this little bruise, my friends," continued Moris Klaw. "Mr. Brearley— it is a shape that will be familiar to you. See! it is thus." He drew an imaginary outline with his long forefinger—

a

And that is the sign of IsisF

THE END

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