Sax Rohmer

“ On the steps behind me stood Clement Leyland and his cousin. The latter's gaze followed the course of the car along the picturesque winding road until it became lost from view. I thought I heard him sigh.
Ensued an uneventful day and night. Life was pleasant enough at Friars House, if a trifle dull; and Sir James seemed unsettled, whilst his disquietude was reflected in his cousin. The latter, now that his active labours in preparing this new residence for the baronet were checked, seemed a man at a loss what to do with himself. ”

“ You may see a beauty of your Regency or a favourite of your Charles; the daughter of a Viking, an ancient British princess; the slave of a Cæsar, the dancer of a Pharaoh!"
"You believe in reincarnation?" suggested Clement Leyland, quietly.
"Yes, certainly, why not, of course!" rumbled Moris Klaw. "But I do not speak of it now, not I; I speak of Nature's reproduction; I tell you how Nature wastes nothing which is beautiful. ”

“ But even as he asked the question, and as we pressed on into the billiard room, it was answered. For Isis Klaw, with a dressing gown thrown over her night apparel, was kneeling beside the settee upon which her father lay.
"What has happened? What has happened?" groaned Sir James. Then, as we approached together: "Mr. Klaw! Mr. Klaw!" he cried.
"All right, my friend!" came the rumbling voice, and to my inestimable relief Moris Klaw sat up and looked around upon us, adjusting his pince-nez to the bridge of his massive nose: "I live! It has saved me, the Science of the Mind!" ”

“ This is a most interesting house, this Grange. I have recorded him, the gray monk, and I learn with surprise how another spook comes poaching on his preserves! Tell us now of these new developments, Sir James."
Sir James cleared his throat and glanced about the table.
"Please smoke," said Isis; "because I should like to smoke, too!"
"Yes, yes!" agreed Moris Klaw. "Remain, my child, we will all remain; do not let us move an inch. This banqueting hall is loaded with psychic impressions. Let us smoke and concentrate our minds upon the problem." ”

“ Clement Leyland, the baronet's cousin, bore a striking resemblance to Sir James, but entirely lacked the latter's breezy manner. I set him down for a man who thought much and said little.
However, conversation could not well flag at a board boasting the presence of such a genial colonial as Sir James and such a storehouse of anecdotal oddities as Moris Klaw. Mr. Leyland and myself, then, for the most part practised the difficult art of listening; for Isis Klaw, I learned, could talk almost as entertainingly as her father. ”

“ He paused, looking around him.
"From the phantom company," he said, "I must pick out that one whose thought is of laughter, of firing guns, and of evil whisperings. What a task! Wondrous is the science of the mental negative!"
The meeting broke up, then, and Isis Klaw, having brought from a large case, which formed part of her father's luggage, two huge red cushions, bade us good-night and retired to her own room. Moris Klaw, with a cushion swinging in each hand, went shuffling ungainly from room to room like some strange animal seeking a lair. ”

“ The servants have heard it. Excepting the housekeeper and the butler, they are leaving almost immediately."
"Ah! canaille!" grunted Moris Klaw; "fear-pigs! It is always so, these servants. So you have not located the one that laughs, no?"
"No," answered Sir James; "and he doesn't stop at laughing—does he, Clem?"
Clement Leyland shook his head. He looked even paler than usual, I thought, and the uncanny incident seemed to have disturbed him greatly.
"What else?" rumbled Moris Klaw. "The gray monk is forgetting his manners. He becomes rude, eh—that gray monk?" ”

“ Moris Klaw stood up.
"This intelligence," he rumbled, "a living or a dead one, has thoughts then, and thoughts, Sir James, are things. I shall sleep in one of the centres of its activity to-night, perhaps here, perhaps in the billiard room or the gun room. Isis, my child, bring for me my odically sterilized pillows. This is a charming case and worthy of the subtle method."
He placed his hands upon the shoulders of Sir James Leyland, who stood facing him.
"Evil thoughts live, Sir James," he said. "I cannot explain to you how hard it is to slay them. Few good thoughts survive ”

“ What has the soul to do with the body? I tell you how the reproduction goes on and on until the mould, the plate, the die, has perished! So is it with ghosts. You write me that your goblin has learned some new tricks. I answer, your goblin can never learn new tricks; I answer, this is not he, it is another goblin! Nature is conservative with her goblins as with her beautiful women; she does not disfigure the old model with alterations. What! Chop them about? Never! she makes new ones."
Clement Leyland smiled discreetly, but Sir James was evidently interested. ”

“ The servants come over here to-day. Is he not well advised? Mr. Clement has all along recommended that this shall be his residence. He was against it, the idea of inhabiting Grange, from the first. He is wise, that Mr. Clement. He has lived in these parts so long. He knows that Grange is haunted, is uninhabitable."
Later, then, Moris Klaw and Isis took their departure; and just as the car was about to drive off my eccentric friend removed his brown bowler and sprayed his bald brow with verbena. He bent to me:
"Day and night," he whispered, huskily, "do not lose sight of him, Sir James! ”

“ Moris Klaw talked incessantly about the fauna of the Sahara Desert, and so monopolized the conversation with his queer anecdotes of snakes and scorpions that no other topic found entrance.
After breakfast the whole party, in Sir James's car, drove over to Friars House; and despite the up-to-date furniture and upholstery, I found it a very gloomy residence. Stripped of its ghostly atmosphere, Grange had been quite a charming seat for any man ”

“ I was filled with intense curiosity; but Moris Klaw, having gone to his room, asking me to await him outside in the drive, returned, ultimately, without the case, but carrying a huge notebook, and intimated that he was prepared to reënter the waiting car.
Behind the pebbles of his pince-nez his strange eyes gleamed triumphantly.
"We triumph," he said. "The haunting of Grange succumbs to the Science of the Mind!"
IV
We all had lunch at Friars House, but were by no means a jovial party. Sir James seemed worried and preoccupied, and Clement Leyland even more reticent than usual. ”

“ Moris Klaw, to the evident discomfort of Sir James, brought the conversation around to the subject of the haunting. I observed him to glance at his watch, with a rather odd expression upon his vellum-hued face.
"Is it not singular," he said, "how poor spectres are confined, like linnets, to their cages? They seem, these spooks, never to roam. That laughing demon of Grange—look at him. He remains in that empty, desolate house ”

“ Few knew that the curio-dealer of Wapping was the author, but as Grange was dealt with in "Psychic Angles," amongst a number of other haunted homes of England, a letter from Sir James Leyland, forwarded by the publisher, had invited the author to investigate the latest developments of the Leyland family ghost.
I had had the privilege to be associated with Moris Klaw in another case of apparent haunting—that which I have dealt with in an earlier paper: the haunting of The Grove. He had courteously invited me, then, to assist him (his own expression) in the inquiry at Grange. ”

“ Sir James knows nothing of it, for has he not spent his life in the Bush?"
He mounted the stair.
"On the right," his voice came back to me, "the gun room, the billiard room! On the left, the banquet room. From here comes the laughter—from here comes the danger."
Still he ascended and I followed. The narrow stair terminated in a dusty box-like apartment no more than six feet high by six feet square. Moris Klaw, ducking his head grotesquely, stood there shining the light about him. From the floor he took up a square wooden case and waved to me to descend again.
"No exit," he said; "no exit. ”

“ 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! ”