Boscastle Abbey was rumoured to be the most haunted house in all England. It was certainly the most inaccessible. Moris Klaw frowned as the elderly gig that had met us at the station clattered up and down the rutted track.
"The rough passage appears to be causing you some discomfort," I remarked to my uncomplaining friend. "Please no," replied Klaw from the depths of his fur coat. "I accept that rough passages can be very discomforting, especially for elderly, but it is you who causes me current discomfort, my good friend Searles. I notice that with every judder of the carriage you bounce up hard against my beautiful daughter Isis."
Being a gentleman I hastily withdrew. Isis let go of me and dropped her gaze, peeking shyly out from underneath those wondrous, drooping eyelashes. The merest slither of tongue slid across the most luscious of lips.
"Really, I had no idea" I stammered, blushing to my feet and back again. "Are you quite sure that it is not merely the motion of the gig?" I asked hopefully.
Klaw rummaged deep within the depths of his sable furs and leant forward with a bottle of scented verbena. He doused my forehead very liberally with the heat-cooling spray.
"Quite sure, my friend" he replied. "Morris Klaw grants you that your actions were, how you say, subconscious, and that your intentions might not therefore have been wholly ….opportunistic? But what do we really know of the subconscious? Pah! We, mere whisps of consciousness, or worse, fragmented memories of mere whisps of consciousness, a weird and false memory of splintered yet miasmic proportions that swirls spiritually through a netherworld of ether in a flickering fashion, first this way, then that way, seeking out its True State or a Higher Understanding Plane or – yes, more likely so – seeking an answer to the eternal paradoxical question that has perplexed the most astute and incisive minds since Positive Thought first sprang up from within the recesses of the Divine Being Of Ig: why is that no matter where you put your keys, no matter how carefully you provide for their safekeeping, they are never there when you want to go out? Eh? I tell you – I, Morris Klaw ! – I tell you that this conspiracy is -"
At that precise moment Isis chose to lean forward across my lap. I gasped. When she spoke I heaved a sigh of relief – or was it of despair?
"Father, take your pill, here. And look, we are arrived."
It was true. We had suddenly veered from the coastal path that commanded such stunning views of the North Cornish coast and were heading inland down to an imposing grey mansion, tucked into a slender, tight valley.
"You like the slender, tight valley, yes?" asked Isis enigmatically, slowly resuming her seat. Confound them both! Psychic powers be damned!
The sun was bubbling into a wide bank of trees that grew behind and above the Abbey. The fading blue sky took on a gorgeous claret tinge altering the light all around. It was like walking into the negative of a photograph. As we approached, Morris Klaw asked me to run over the background once again.
"Well, this chap I was at Eton with, name of Bloom, called me up quite out of the blue and asked whether I wanted to meet up for a spot of lunch. I had nothing on that day, except, of course, that I was supposed to be meeting Anstruthers at the club -"
"My dearest friend" broke in Klaw, with an air of mild toleration set upon his lofty Asiatic brow, "I meant please to proceed from beginning of story, not beginning of day."
"Righty-o," I replied, "I was coming to that bit." Klaw was apt to be a little eccentric but it was worth humouring him. If only to remain in close proximity to Isis… "Well, I ditched Anstruthers, and went to luncheon with Bloomers – that’s what we called old Bloomy at school, you see, and my apologies to Miss Klaw of course should the term offend – and we shared a bottle or three with Burrers who we ran into and then we chatted about this and that -"
"And that and this" interrupted my impatient friend, smiling benignly.
"Anyway," I resumed, not to be thwarted, "he told me that after having left college he had travelled the world for two years or so seeking out his fortune. In Delhi he had redesigned the transport system and set up a business that franchised road and railway licenses for the whole of the Indian subcontinent; in Buenos Aires he had discovered a cure for malaria that he quickly patented world-wide, with all profits from the venture going to an International Childrens Charity that he set up to distribute aid to South America ("Ah", muttered Klaw into his collar, "so it was that Bloom"); and in Australia he quickly rose to power in politics, reforming the judicial and parliamentary system to wide critical acclaim. He was just getting started on a new venture in Egypt, building a canal I recall, and drilling for some oil, when the dreadful news came through to him that his father was about to die very suddenly. Naturally, he rushed home to be by his father’s side. On his deathbed his father bequeathed the entire estate to him – which naturally of course entailed the Abbey, an orchard, a few cows, various small villages, oh, and a small cathedral city – requesting that his son remain at home thenceforth."
I paused in my dialogue for my erstwhile companion had leant forward, a single plump but strong finger held up in the surreal twilight.
"Please to be precise. He said "thenceforth"?"
I hmmed and frowned. "I think so. Well, it may have been a "thereafter.""
"You are not sure?"
"No."
"So it could have been a "thereafter"…interesting, deeply interesting…"
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. "Or it might have been a ‘henceforth’, with no T. Or even a ‘thither-after’."
Morris Klaw threw his hands up in indignation. "Pah, you English with your archaic words! Thither, thence, wherefore – it is all a smokescreen!"
This interested me. Morris Klaw did not follow false scents. "You think this important?" I whispered.
Klaw fixed me with a withering gaze. "My friend, I cannot stress how important I view this matter. It may be of monumental importance, or it may be of zero importance. But I tell you this: Morris Klaw will soon take the wheat and the chaff and grind them together to make a loaf of truth from which the meek and the guilty shall sup!"
I sat back abashed. In all my years of acquaintance with this most learned and entertaining of men, I had never once learnt how to respond to his bizarre outbursts. Instead I looked at Isis. Isis. Beautiful, serene, supplicatory Isis. How I should like to sweep her up in my arms and carry her off to a castle built of red jewels. How I should like to carry her roughly up the steps of the steepest, tallest tower, snagging her clothes on the way, so that some fell off; a tower that commanded a glorious view across the whole wide generous giving land from the tip of its thrusting sky-piercing pinnacle –
"Please to resume story," said Morris Klaw, fixing me with a steely telepathic stare. "I am etherally returned, and I am, as you would say, ‘all eyes’."
"Oh, of course, ahem," I flustered. "Where was I? Yes, the deathbed. Well, old man Bloom was about to croak it, when he made a special appeal to his son. He sent all the servants out of the room and in hushed whispers asked him to finally rid the Abbey of the dreadful family curse that had cut short the lives of all Bloom men, and had had hung like a gloomy cloud of horror over the Boscastle pile for centuries."
"A clever man, your Mr Bloom senior," retorted Klaw. "He knew full well it is unwise to frighten the servants with talk of ghosts and hobgoblins. They are as a class very spineless and superstitious and are apt to flee in a blind panic at the merest hint of supernatural materialisations."
I concurred with Klaw. I never yet had met a working man who would not turn ashen white and run babbling for the front door when awoken by a fearsome midnight shriek or the heavy dread clunking of a phantom headless soldier. Bravery in the face of spooks seemed to be strictly confined to enigmatic Orientals and public school chaps like myself and Bloomers.
Morris Klaw placed his hands together as if in prayer and bade me continue.
"It was over luncheon at the Savage Club that Bloomers spilled the beans. He tried to be nonchalant but both I and Burrage smelt a rat."
I paused, noticing that my friend looked confused. Surely he wasn’t going to make the bean joke again, I wondered?
"I am sorry, my friend," he replied, "I was trying to project myself astrally into your Savage Club. Pray continue."
"Well, there’s not much else actually. Bloom told us all about the family curse. Apparently it began in the last century, after the great grandfather had died under highly mysterious circumstances. The old man had believed that someone was trying to poison him, so he had introduced various extreme regimes within the household. Food was to be prepared in front of witnesses and tasted by an official taster; the house was to be scrubbed from top to bottom and kept scrupulously clean, to protect against germs and unclean surfaces; and the rooms were copiously aired to ward off evil odours and malingering agues. But it was all to no avail: the old man met a very sudden and awful death late one summer. All night the rats – or something else, something much more sinister – had been extremely busy behind the panelled wainscoting, scrabbling and scratching in a terribly loud and upsetting fashion. The whole household sat terrified at the ill-boding that this heralded. Suddenly - at midnight exactly - the noise stopped, and for a moment complete but heavily pregnant silence reigned upon the Abbey. Then came a dreadful sound from within the Armoured Gallery. A horrible high-pitched clank, followed by several dull thuds. Old man Bloom was as head of the household expected to set an example to the servants by investigating the matter, for every spineless man-jack of them lay quivering under the table in the servants hall. Three people watched him enter the room, then cry out "Oh my God, it’s alive!" before hearing an almighty crash. Moments later the old man staggered out, clutching his heart. He fell to the floor in a paroxysm of dying. The last words he was heard to mutter were "The suit of armour – it’s alive!!!" And ever since that hideous day, the male Bloom bloodline has been cursed by the same ghastly fate. Cautiously they act out their lives, always aware that stalking their path is the same unavoidable horror, for at some vague, unpredictable time, the Abbey will resound loudly with demoniac noises within the walls, heralding the approach of the death of the next Bloom. Each son is hunted down and scared to death by a terrifying vision: and that vision is the supernaturally re-animated suit of armour!"
Morris Klaw was rocking himself back and forth. He looked very serious and thoughtful. What strange and illuminating thoughts must be zipping around inside that shiny and slightly yellow cranium, I wondered in admiration. And aloud, as I discovered to my discomfort.
"Strange yes," replied my curious little friend, "but alas, not yet illuminating. I fear I must sleep upon the matter before we can begin to penetrate the dense layers of Etherically Charged Fog that conceal the truth from us. Yes, I Morris Klaw, shall turn a warm heater upon your clouds of chilled moist air and ping! the little fragments of dust and steam shall evaporate and all will be revealed in the glorious Sunshine Of Revelation."
Fortunately at this juncture we pulled up outside of the front porch, for Klaw was obviously rambling like a deranged genius. No doubt he had been over-stimulated by the invisible waves of spook electricity that must surely emanate from the most haunted house in all England.
"Searles old boy!"
A lithe and healthy young man leapt down the steps to grab my hand in a firm and confident grip. He was dressed in country tweeds and his complexion spoke of hours spent in good honest toil under foreign suns. He brushed away a stray lock of chestnut hair and stood back looking me up and down.
"Riding boots suit you," I spluttered out foolishly, referring to the black leather footwear that sheathed his strong legs like tight leather encasements. The sun caught his eyes and they glittered and span, just like they had on that afternoon many summers ago when we had bunked off a Latin cram and romped boyishly together on a dorm bed. At that same moment Isis descended from the carriage, uncoiling herself like an imperious and faintly bemused snake. I looked back at Bloom’s boots, then again at Isis’s lips. It was all helplessly confusing.
"You must be the Klaws, about whom my good friend Searles speaks so highly," broke out my schoolfriend, dashing forward to take Morris Klaw’s small travelling case. "You must meet my lawyer – he is terribly fond of ‘clauses’ too!"
Morris Klaw meet this dubious hilarity with stoic yet not impolite silence. He merely inclined his head slightly and smiled thinly.
"You have problem with Clanking Armour?" he said. "You require the help of Morris Klaw and not lawyer?"
Bloom immediately reddened.
"Of course, how stupid of me. Please accept my apologies – I am always putting my foot in it. Saying the wrong thing and all that. I’m a good egg really, and I have an open refreshing smile, so please accept my sincere apologies for my ill-timed comment about your name."
This apology was graciously accepted. Soon the servants were busy removing our valises and various boxes from the carriage and our host was ushering us through the door and into an imposing entrance hall. Gloomy waxen portraits glared down at us from all sides, and the air was heavy with the aroma of doom.
"It looks a dreary and dismal place I grant you," said our host, "I thought the same when I returned here a few weeks ago. But it is kept well-aired, as per tradition, and is of course scrupulously clean." I thought he added this after glancing across at Isis, who had taken up an attractive catlike pose against one of the tall columns next to a deep inglenook fireplace.
"Highly commendable, but that is of little concern to us," answered Klaw senior in a clipped voice. "We travel with an Odically Sterilised Commode."
And indeed as he spoke, two servants struggled past with a curious contraption that looked for all intents and purposes like a sedan.
"Please to take us to Armoury," continued Morris Klaw. "We must acclimatise to the Sprit Aroma and start to prepare the developer within for future telepathic photography."
Bloom pointed to the other side of the hall and looked helplessly at me, mouthing "Who is this crank?" behind the retreating backs of Klaw senior and junior. We made our way through a stream of never-ending passages until they ended outside a large double fronted door. A door that bore across its middle - a giant padlock!
CHAPTER TWO
"Blast it!" exclaimed Bloom. "I’ve forgotten the key."
Whilst he ran back down the never-ending passages to the hall Morris Klaw took the opportunity to take me aside.
"Tonight Morris Klaw solves this little puzzle, my friend. Tonight you will see unravelled that which has lain ravelled up and unravellellellable for centuries. I will single handedly free your carefree and handsome friend – yes, senile old creature that I am, I too have noted his boyish-man charms – so that he and other Blooms can live a long and fear free existence. Your friend Bloom need not fear to live forever as a recluse. I shall repose here in this room, sleeping within the very jaws of the Lion of Death, waiting for those jaws to snap shut, before leaping awake and propping open those terrible mandibles with a large imaginary Odic Pencil in order to smote the blow of Logic that shall rid this dreary mausoleum of it’s reign of ghastly terror!"
Klaw’s eyes glowed green in the dim light. He crept even closer to me.
"But listen well, my friend, this is the most important bit. Whilst I sleep here below, in the snapping jaws of death, and you sleep above, let me give you this one word of warning. If you dare stray out of bed late at night because of a chance heard noise, or some implausible such country house excuse, and find yourself accidentally-on-purpose in the bedroom of my daughter Isis, I will have no hesitation in taking out my razor-sharp Odically Sterilised Scimitar and cutting off your-"
Unfortunately Klaw’s sentence was never finished for Bloom had returned. I would have to wait until later to probe my friend for his exact meaning. Bloom undid the padlock and it fell with a deafening clang upon the floor. We entered the mighty room as Bloom lit the gas, awestruck at the weaponry on display. Bloom proudly informed us that most of it had been pillaged from all four corners of the globe, liberated from Johnny Foreigner museums, where any old kaffir could gawp at it. We stopped in front of a monstrous suit of armour, apparel that had a cruel and twisted character weaved into its design. The wearer of that hideous skin would no doubt strike fear into the heart of even an English soldier.
"That," began Bloom, somewhat inarticulately, choking back some unnamed emotion, "is the armour that animates itself to presage the death of my family!"
He threw himself upon a nearby chaise and began weeping uncontrollably. It was a pitiable sight, that strong healthy man crying like a scared child. Instinctively I moved closer towards Isis.
"Pull yourself together, my newly acquired friend" comforted Morris Klaw. He sat beside the weeping man and proffered a handkerchief that he had doused liberally with an effervescent opium mixture. Bloom thanked him and inhaled deeply of the draught.
"Thank you, Mr Klaw," said Bloom, recovering his senses. "I don’t know quite what came over me. I acted like a big girl."
"You can say that again," I snorted, exchanging a derisory wink with Isis.
"I think it is time for bed," said Morris Klaw. "I shall of course rest here, upon this most comfortably upholstered divan, and attempt to tune into the Spook Waves that undoubtedly radiate out from this room. Mr Bloom, I feel peckish. Please to supply an Englishman’s Ploughmans, and make it heavy on the cheese."
A servant was quickly despatched for this odd late meal and returned shortly afterwards. He had added a mug of ale on his own initiative, for which Bloom thanked him.
"No worries, Chief," replied the footman. He turned to Morris Klaw. "Are you with the bizzies or what? Are yous lookin’ to sort out this here ghostie?"
"Pack your bags, Pendlebury, you’re fired," cut in Bloom. "I warned you not to speak Scouser in front of my guests."
"Very well, m’lud. Pray accept my sincere apologies. I shall leave the vicinity immediately." The odiously familiar servant left the room whilst Bloom was left to proffer apologies. However, no sooner had he finished speaking, when the noise began. It did not slowly or courteously introduce itself: it immediately leapt into our ears and started to assault our brains with a sudden and frightening urgency. The noise was impossible to describe. It was like sound of the intense scrabbling of hundreds of rats – or more precisely, bony skeletal fingers – upon the panelled wainscoting. It echoed all around the Abbey and was loudest within this room.
A scream rang out. "It’s alright," I said, tsk-tsking, "its only girly Bloomers fainting."
Morris Klaw bade us carry the limp man out of the room to his chamber. He then ushered Isis and myself out of the door too.
"Isis, please to fetch my Odically Sterilised Pillow and Ether-Blocking Ear Muffs. I shall be perfectly alright (this in response to our protestations). Please to leave and go to respective bedrooms. If I should need any assistance, I shall bang this big dinner gong."
We followed the great man’s instructions to the letter. After Morris Klaw had been tucked up with his Odical Accompaniments, I followed Isis very slowly up the stairs and walked her to her door.
"You better leave it open just a little," I advised her, as she sought to twist the heavy key in the lock.
"Why?" she answered, from out of her lips.
"Because a locked door will delay your attempts to leave your room should your father call out," I replied. I ended on a triumphant note. "And should the suit of armour magically come alive and seek you out, you will hear it from afar, and no doubt it would be strong enough to break down your door, regardless of any lock."
"You will come if I get frightened?" she asked. I shivered. "Especially if you get frightened," I replied.
I retired to my room. The excitement of the evening prevented me from sleeping, so I pulled a big armchair up to the large bay window and sat reading by candlelight. The book I had rashly chosen was a first edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Some fool called Irving had seen fit to scrawl his comments about the novel on the free endpaper, so I tore it out to make a paper plane. I opened the window and sent it spiralling out into the velvety night. I resumed my reading with a wide yawn but was soon dozing in the chair. The book slipped to the floor. In my dreams I was in the tallest tower of a dark forgotten castle, being ravaged by trio of bloodthirsty maidens, Isis triplets in fact, whilst her father and the Count pounded at the door, both of them screaming "He’s mine!! He’s mine!!"
I woke with a jolt. The book fell to the floor and the sheaves of pages separated from the yellow cloth covers. I scooped up the whole and stuffed it in the litter-bin. The beautiful original dustwrapper had a tiny scratch upon it too so I scrunched that up into a ball and flicked it into the fire. I watched it fizzle and burn, mesmerised by the flames, still in sleepy torpor, when a series of loud metallic crashes rang out through the Abbey – it was that which had awoken me!
Galvanised into concern for my friend, and without thought to my own safety, I quickly dressed, shaved and made my bed, before leaping down the stairs one at a time. I grabbed a piece of toast from the kitchen and hastily made my way through the hall. A cluster of people huddled round the doorway to the armoury.
"Let me through," I called out authoritatively, scattering the whimpering servants like ninepins. Inside the room I found my friend Klaw swooning on the divan, being sprayed in verbena by his attentive daughter Isis. At their feet lay a crumpled suit of armour and a few scattered crumbs of cheese. Bloom was striding back and forth, shaking his head in disbelief.
"It is true, my newly acquired friend," croaked Morris Klaw. His voice sounded like gravel being shaken in a teapot.
"But I can’t believe it! It is to fantastic!"
I interrupted this un-illuminating exchange. "What can’t you believe? What is true?"
Morris Klaw struggled up and composed himself.
I look for the clues – they are there, yes, but we are quick to dismiss them – and I arrange them thus and thus into an unconnected theory. This much I had done before the evening began. Then I prepare to let the paint run upon the canvas. I sleep here and permit the Spook Waves to craft and fashion my theory into fact. And my unconventional approach works. It yields, as you would no doubt say, a fine crop of asparagus, yes?"
Klaw stood up and prodded at the deathly immobile suit of armour.
"I slept through the furious scrabbling noise. Then all was silent. I lighted my little green opium pipe. The owl hooted at the window. The wind soughed in the yew trees. The church bell, he tolled midnight. And then – then the suit of armour came alive!!!"
We all stood open-mouthed.
"It is true! I, Morris Klaw, as I stand here before you, I confirm that this hideous suit of evil began to move and walk across this very floor!"
We opened our mouths even wider. I glanced across at Isis. Her mouth was open the widest of all.
"And then I sprang my trap! I quickly crumbled some cheese in a short line thus that led here to a cunningly concealed tripwire. The suit of armour clanked its way along the line of cheese until it fell here, where you see, felled by a simple shoelace!"
We closed our mouths and looked cynically at the speaker.
"I see you look at me in askance," began the great detective with a sly smile pasted across his face. "I understand why you should. What if I were to tell you that the horrible noises that every Bloom comes to hear are merely the scrabblings of mice, and that the re-animated suit of armour is simply operated by several sentient mice standing on each other’s shoulders, operating the limbs inside?"
Bloom threw himself into a chair. "It is too fantastic!" he cried. "Sentient mice!"
"It is true," replied Klaw impressively. "These mice have been compelled to cultivate a superior form of intelligence in order to survive. Their race was threatened with extinction when your ancestors embarked upon a campaign of hygiene and household cleanliness. They had to withdraw to the subterranean depths within the walls and floors to seek food and shelter. Here they mutated, no doubt prey to the evil Spook Waves that radiate in every English country house. They plot. They swore revenge upon your family for having installed closed-lid wheelie bins in the kitchen. These once proud mice, they are forced to feed off beetles and dust and old bits of junk left in the attic. So, at a various pre-determined times, these vengeful mice would all clamber up into the wainscoting and bang against the panels with tiny purposely-built metal dishes. Then they would file slowly and carefully under the floor in this armoury and up into a small aperture in the foot of the suit of armour, standing some fifty mice high, before animating the silver skin into physical action. Thus several generations of Bloom have been wiped out, each struck down by mortal fear."
Klaw pointed to the floor.
"See these cheese crumbs. I, Morris Klaw, I know what a mouse finds irresistible. A mouse that has been deprived of good cheese is a ravenous, uncontrollable Psychic Force, and I predicted that the mice would, upon scenting the foodstuff they had only heard discussed of in legend, be unable to resist the allure of its aroma. Hundreds of mice rapidly exited the suit of armour and began to feed like sharks upon the Cheddar cheese, whereupon Morris Klaw – yes, it is I! – sprayed them with Odically Sterilised Mouse Evaporant. The mice shrieked in hideous agony, their tiny evil little mouse spirits being sucked up into the Ether Vacuum. Pfft! They are gone! Vanished into the ether. It is then that I banged your ornate Chinese dinner gong."
Morris Klaw sank back to the divan. His daughter gently mopped his brow. She was whispering something to the old man, something about me trying to bang her gong, when Bloom recovered his senses and gushed profuse praise upon the Oriental detective.
"It is nothing," replied the great man deprecatingly, "I Morris Klaw, I am happy to assist in such matters. I am anathema to your English spirits, yes? And now we must be going. Thank you, no, we have intruded upon your hospitality for far too long. A quick visit to the Odic Commode and we must be off. Isis, please to present shocked English gentlemen with itemised bill. My friend Searles, you will join us, or remain with your school chum?" I looked at Bloom in a different light after tonight. His girl-like fear compared unfavourably with the masterful control exhibited by my friend Morris Klaw. My curiously English romantic regard for my boyhood friend had evaporated like a spook mouse in the ether. And of course, there was his daughter Isis.
"No, I want to come with Isis," I blurted out. The old detective smiled and nodded with impish Oriental humour.
"Perhaps it shall be," he said at last. "Perhaps it shall be."
And that is how the great Morris Klaw debunked the myth behind the most haunted house in all of England.
© Christopher Barker 2003. No part of this webpage may be reproduced elsewhere without the author's prior consent.
The Boscastle Abbey Haunting
A newly discovered ‘Morris Klaw ‘Dream Detective’ story
A newly discovered ‘Morris Klaw ‘Dream Detective’ story