THE CRYSTAL CLAW
THE CRYSTAL CLAW
THE CRYSTAL CLAWCHAPTER IMID SILENT SNOWS
THE CRYSTAL CLAW
“Yes, an extremely pretty girl,” remarked old Dr. Feng, bending towards me and speaking softly across thetable-à-deuxat which we were dining at the Kürhaus hotel at Mürren, high-up in the snow-clad Alps. “A honeymooning couple, no doubt,” he went on—“nice place this for a honeymoon!” and the white-haired old Chinese who—most unusual in one of his race, had a long white beard—smiled as he poured out a tiny glass of white curaçao, the only form of alcohol I ever saw him indulge in.
I glanced across in the direction he indicated and saw seated in a corner, a pretty dark-haired grey-eyed girl of twenty. She wore a flame-colored dance-frock, and was laughing happily as she chatted with a good-looking young man, perhaps six years or so her senior. The young fellow was smart and distinguished-looking and the girl was very handsome, with irregular features, and singularlyexpressive eyes, but hers was a nervous, restless physiognomy that rather chilled one at first sight. The expression in both their faces told the truth quite clearly. They were, indeed, newly wed, and they had that evening arrived on the funicular railway from Lauterbrunnen, in the valley below, by the service which had left Victoria station the previous afternoon.
“Yes, a very handsome pair,” I agreed. “I wonder who they are?”
“Don’t inquire. When you marry, Yelverton, you won’t like people to be inquisitive. All newly-married people are super-sensitive, you know,” declared my companion.
Dr. Feng Tsu’tong, despite his seventy years, did not look a day more than sixty. Much above the common height for a Chinese he possessed features of the type which seldom show many signs of advancing age. Erect and virile he carried himself like a much younger man and of his activity and endurance I had had ample proof, for, in our frequent long tramps and ski expeditions across the snow, he had shown me more than once that his muscles were equal to my own, despite the great disparity in our ages.
He was a highly-cultured and widely read man. I imagined when I first met him, as I found to be the case when I knew him better, that he must haveleft China many years before, for he spoke perfect English, though with a slight American accent. His quaint philosophy had made an instant appeal to me. Though he was much older than I, his mental outlook was surprisingly young and we had become constant companions and very firm friends in quite a short time. I have seldom met a man in whom I felt such complete confidence and sympathy as in this old Chinese doctor. We spent much time together, often taking long expeditions afoot or on ski or sometimes as partners in a game of curling of which he was passionately fond.
Our acquaintance as a matter of fact had been a casual one. I had left London blanketed under fog and rain and after a twenty-four hours’ journey by rail had found myself in Mürren—that winter paradise of the young, opposite the towering Jungfrau with its attendant heights, the Monch and the Eiger, high-up in a glittering world of sunshine, snow and silence. The scene looked almost like a typical Christmas card. We were so high up that by day the sun shone brightly from a sky as blue and cloudless as that of Cannes, there were ten feet of powdery snow everywhere and the crystal-clear air was as bright and invigorating as champagne.
Giacomo, the smiling head waiter, had placed me with Dr. Feng at a small table set in the window inthe greatsalle à manger. We had taken to each other at once and had become companions, not only at meals, but on the superb ice-rink which was in perfect condition as was flooded and re-frozen each night. There we skated or curled, or we took excursions on the wonderful rack-railway up to the Allmendhubel, or else over the snow to what is known as the Half-way House, or else down to the Blumen-tal.
Mürren in winter ispar excellencea sports centre for young people who indulge in skating, tobogganing,lugeingand skiing, the winter sports that are, in these post-war days, happily eclipsing the exotic pleasures one obtains on the Riviera. There, in the Bernese Oberland, the vice of gambling hardly exists save in the form of occasional bridge as a relaxation after the day’s sport.
Each winter the Kürhaus hotel is a centre for the ever-growing band of enthusiasts who meet there for the bright social life and superb out-door sport which Mürren affords. These are the people who truly enjoy themselves healthfully. Skiing and similar pursuits demand perfect physical fitness and at the Kürhaus one is in the centre of wholesome out-door exercise by day and in the evening of a gay merriment which only seems to round off and complete the pleasures of days spent in the open air on the towering mountain slopes. At Mürren onefinds a winter life that cannot be excelled in Europe.
The scene was wonderfully attractive. All around us were the great hills clothed in virgin snow, dotted here and there with merry parties of girls whose bright sports costumes provided startling splashes of color against the white background. Everywhere pretty lips laughed in the sheer joy of young exuberant life. Everywhere merry conversation rang out from dawn to dusk, everybody seemed to be active, healthy and happy.
But beneath all the fun and frivolling I had found a deeper, more serious note. It was struck for me by Dr. Feng.
More and more I found myself falling under the spell of the old man’s mentality. More and more I realized how much we had in common. A native of Yunnan, he had left China when about thirty—chiefly, I gathered, on account of political troubles. The range and variety of his knowledge was encyclopædic: there seemed to be hardly a subject on which he could not talk brilliantly if he chose to exert himself. And we had one great bond of sympathy—both of us loved music. Feng was a brilliant pianist. I was passionately devoted to the violin and we spent many hours over the works of the great composers. Like most other young men I had a fairly good opinion of myself, but compared with Dr. Feng, I was a mere child in musical knowledge.Our music, however, made us both popular and it had become quite a regular evening custom for us to play to the Kürhaus guests in the great ball-room.
There was, however, a still deeper side to our intercourse. Feng had initiated me into the first principles of the little-known Yogi philosophy—the doctrine that the real man is not the visible body, that the immortal “I,” of which each human being is conscious to a greater or lesser extent, merely occupies and uses the corporal transient flesh. The Yogis believe that the body is but as a suit of clothes which the Spirit puts on and off from time to time, and they insist that the body must be brought under the perfect control of the mind—that the instrument must be finely tuned so as to respond to the touch of the hand of the master.
Feng had made a deep study of the Yogi teaching and was, in himself, living evidence of a man virile and rejuvenated in both body and mind. People stood astounded when they were told his actual age, and I, admiring him, was now endeavoring in my own way to follow his footsteps. The doctrine he urged with such compelling eloquence and powers had taken a deep hold of my mind—how deep I never realized until I found myself flung suddenly into dangers and temptations whichwere to try my physical and mental fortitude to their very depths.
It was the arrival of Stanley Audley and his bride that, suddenly and unexpectedly, changed the entire current of my life. And as I sit here placing on record this chronicle of bewildering events, I wonder that I came safely through the maze of doubt, mystery and peril in which I found myself so suddenly plunged. I can only believe that a man, profoundly influenced, as I very speedily was, by the splendid philosophy of Yogi and buoyed up by a consuming love for a pure and beautiful woman, will face dangers before which others might well quail,—will even, as the saying goes, “throw dice with the devil” if need be.
To make my story clear, I had better formally introduce myself. My name is Rex Yelverton, my age at present moment twenty-eight and the astounding incidents I am about to relate happened just over three years ago, so that I was under twenty-five at the time.
My father had died when I was twenty-three and had left me a small estate near Andover. I had been brought up to the law and had been admitted a solicitor just before my father’s death. I could not afford to live on the estate, so had cosy chambers on the top floor of an old-fashioned house in Russell Square and having entered into partnershipwith a solicitor named Hensman, practiced with him in Bedford Row.
Hensman’s hobby was golf and for that reason he took his holiday in the summer. I loved the winter life of Switzerland and for some years had made it my rule to get away in the winter. In addition to my music I was deeply interested in wireless, and had fitted up quite a respectable wireless station in a room in Russell Square. I had a transmitting license and with my two hobbies found my spare time so fully occupied that I mixed but little in ordinary society.
On that never-to-be-forgotten night when I first saw Stanley Audley and his handsome bride, the Doctor retired early, as was his habit. So, strolling into the ball-room of the Kürhaus opposite the hotel, I watched the pair dancing happily together, the cynosure of all eyes, of course, though the room was not very full, as the season had only just begun.
Like all other honeymoon couples, they were trying to pretend that they had been married for years and, like all other honeymoon couples, they were failing lamentably! The truth was, as ever, palpable to every onlooker. Like every one else I admired them, though like every one else, I smiled at their pretty pretense. As they had arrived by the night train from Calais, I guessed they had been married in London about thirty hours before andhad come straight through to Mürren. This, in fact, proved to be the truth.
In my admiration of the beautiful young bride I was not alone, for a middle-aged, grey-bearded invalid, name Hartley Humphreys, with whom I often played billiards before going to bed, also remarked upon her beauty, and expressed wonder as to who they were. It was then that another man in the room, also evidently interested, told us that their name was Audley.
Next morning, on coming downstairs, I found little Mrs. Audley dressed in winter-sports clothes and looking inexpressibly sweet and charming.
She wore a pale grey Fair Isle jersey, with a bright jazzy pattern, with a saucy little cap to match, and over the jersey a short dark brown coat with fur collar and cuffs, and around her waist a leather belt. Brown corduroy breeches, and heavy well-oiled boots and ski-anklets completed one of the most sensible ski-outfits I have ever seen. That she was no novice at skiing was evident from the badge, a pair of crossed skis, she wore in her cap. It was the badge of the Swiss Ski Club—the same as that worn by the Alpine guides themselves.
Naturally I was surprised. I had, on the previous night, believed her to be simply a handsome young bride who had come to spend her honeymoon amidthe winter gayety of Mürren, but now it was clear she was no beginner.
She had already breakfasted and was smoking a cigarette and laughing gayly with an American girl she had met on the previous night, and apparently awaiting her husband.
In a few moments the husband, in a wind-proof ski-suit and wearing one of those peaked caps of blue serge which nobody dare wear save the practiced ski-runner, came down with a word of apology.
“I broke my boot-lace, dearest. I apologize.”
“Oh! That’s all right, Stan,” she laughed, “John has got the food in his rucksack.”
Then I saw that John von Allmen, the intrepid and popular young guide, was waiting outside for them. They were going on a skiing excursion up the Schelthorn. Certainly they were no novices! I soon afterwards discovered they had both passed their “tests” in previous winters at Wengen and Pontresina.
The sun was shining brightly upon the newly fallen snow, although it was not yet nine o’clock, and as I watched the happy young couple adjust the ski-bindings to the boots and take their ski-sticks, those iron spiked poles of cherry wood with circular ends of cane to prevent sinking where the snow is soft, I noted how merry and blissful they were.
Suddenly the tall, lithe, young Alpine guide in his neat blue serge skiing suit drew on his leather mitts, hitched on his rucksack and the little party slid swiftly away over the snow.
It was clear the girl was an expert—her every movement showed it. Those who go skiing well know the difficulty of keeping their balance on the long, narrow planks turned up in front which constitute ski. But the bride had long ago passed through the initial stages. As I found out later she had been year after year to winter sports and had long passed the period when she practiced her “telemarks” and “stemmings” on the “Nursery Slopes.” Her lithe swift movements were delightful to watch and it was clear she was enjoying to the full the keen exhilaration born of the swift gliding over the crisp snow.
As I stood watching the swift progress of the Audleys and their guide, old Dr. Feng spoke behind me.
“A pretty sight, Yelverton. It is good, indeed, to be young. There’s an example of the fate lying before you: you’ll have to marry some day, you know.”
“No sign of it yet, doctor,” I laughingly replied.
As a matter of fact, matrimony had so far made no appeal to me: I had never met a girl who had stirred me deeply. I had many friends—or at leastacquaintances—of my own sex, but I was deeply absorbed in my hobbies and, not seeking society for society’s sake, I had hardly any woman friends. Sometimes I fancied that the opposite sex found in me something antipathetic and uncongenial: at any rate, I made little progress with them and, perhaps for that reason, was quite content to remain a bachelor and keep my father’s old housekeeper, Mrs. Chapman, to “mother” me as she did when I was a boy and manage my flat in Russell Square.
I suppose I was no better and no worse than thousands of other fellows of my age. Men coming down from Oxford and flung into the whirl of London life are not usually Puritans or ascetics. I suppose I was much like them. Life was young in me, and fortune had been kind. If I had few friends, I had no enemies: I had an income ample for my wants and I enjoyed myself in my own way. My work kept me busy during the day: my evenings were filled with music, my “wireless,” an occasional dance, or theatre and I was always merry and happy. Nothing had occurred to make me, a careless youngster, realize that there was something in life deeper and dearer than anything I know. I was not given to self-analysis or overmuch introspection and that a storm of love might some day shatter my complacent existence to bits never crossed my mind. My music and my experiments in radio-telephonywere about the only serious side of my life. So Dr. Feng’s good humored badinage left me quite unmoved.
We strolled together to the curling rink for a match.
Old Mr. Humphreys, a grey-faced financier from the near East, and a very charming and refined old fellow, sat in his invalid chair watching us. The ice was in perfect condition and very fast, so that the game was as good as could be obtained, even in Scotland itself. The orchestra was playing gay music for the skaters, some of whom were waltzing, laughter sounded everywhere and the bright sunny morning was most enjoyable.
We lost the match, mostly, I fear, through several very bad stones that I played, and our lack of energy in sweeping. Curling is a very difficult game to play well, for, unlike golf or tennis, one can get such little practice at home.
However, we all afterward retired to the bar, and over our cocktails old Mr. Humphreys who, being a confirmed invalid, wheeled himself about in his chair, chatted merrily. He had arrived about a week after I had come. He seldom, if ever, left his chair during the day. His guidance and management of the chair was wonderful and he could even play billiards while seated. He and the doctor were great friends and often joined a bridge party together,while I took my skis up the cable railway to the Allmendhubel and swept back down the slopes.
The following afternoon, while passing along the terrace of the big chalet which overlooks the rink, I found Major Harold Burton, here the secretary of the Mürren Bob-sleigh Club, and at home an officer in the Tank Corps, chatting with the Audleys.
“I say, Yelverton!” he exclaimed, “will you join us on a test on the bob-run presently? Mr. and Mrs. Audley are coming. Let me introduce you.”
I raised my ski-cap and bowed.
“Thanks,” I replied, “I’ll be delighted to make a fourth. You’re the only man I’d trust to take me down. It’s too fast for me!” I added with a laugh.
“Is it really a fast run?” asked the bride, smiling.
“Well, you will see for yourself,” I replied.
Laughing gayly we went over the snow, past the bend at the village shop where one can obtain anything from a Swiss cuckoo clock, to a paper of pins, and whose elderly proprietor is one of the best ski instructors in the canton. Paying our fare, we ascended by the rack-railway up the snowy heights of the Allmendhubel.
On the truck was our heavy “bob,” with its steel frame and runners, and its delicate controls. At the summit the attendants pushed it along the flat to the narrow entrance of the bob-run which a hundred hands had, a few weeks before, constructedin the snow, digging it all out and making many banked-up hair-pin bends down the side of the mountain for two and a half miles back into Mürren.
Those curves are scientifically calculated for speed, but it takes an expert to negotiate them successfully. The crew of a “big bob” must know the course, and be alert to the command of the driver to bend over “right,” “left,” or “up.” One’s first trip in a “bob” on a fast run is an experience never to be forgotten. But both the bride and bridegroom revealed that they had done such things before.
At the “gate” of the run—a narrow cut eight feet deep in the snow—a smiling Swiss stood beside the telephone, which gave “clear passage.” Burton, as an expert, who took no chances, had the “bob” turned over, and examined the brakes and controls, which sometimes get clogged with snow.
We all got in and set our feet forward on the rests, I being behind to act as brakesman, and to “brake” at the instant order of Burton.
“Everybody all right?” he asked, as we settled ourselves behind each other on the big bob.
We responded that we were, then four men pushed us off down the narrow icy slope.
Slowly we went at first. Then, suddenly gathering speed, we saw a dead end in front of us.
“Right!” cried Burton, and all of us leaned over to the right and thus negotiated the corner.
“Left!” was the order, and round we went every moment gathering speed.
“Careful!” he cried, “in a minute we shall have a right and left quickly. Now—! Right! Left! Up! Quick!”
By this time we were flying down the side of the mountain, showers of particles of ice every now and then being thrown up and cutting our faces. Now and again we swept through clouds of snow. We held our breath and screwed up our eyes until we could only just see.
“Left! Right! Up! Left—again! Right!” shouted Burton, and each of us alert and quick, obeyed. We were traveling at a furious speed and any fault might mean a serious accident, such as that in which one of the British Bob-sleigh team for the Olympic Sports broke both his legs during a run at Chamonix.
“Straight!” we heard Burton shout as we flew along, still down and down. “Right in a few moments,” he cried. “Be careful. Then a big bump and we’re down. Steady!—steady! Now-w-w! Right!—Look out! Bump! Good!” and he steered us down a straight path past where the watcher stood at the other end of the telephone.
“Well?” he shouted to the time-keeper, as he pulled up, “what is it?”
“Four minutes, eight and a half seconds, sir,”replied the tall, thin-faced Swiss peasant, speaking in French.
“Good! Fairly fast! But we’ll try to do it in better time tomorrow.”
I had sat behind little Mrs. Audley who, turning to me, her face reddened by the rush of frosty air, exclaimed,—
“Wasn’t it glorious! I’ve been to Switzerland three times before. I passed my third test in skiing two years ago, but have never been on a big bob-run. That last double turn was most exciting, wasn’t it?”
I agreed, and we all four strolled together back to the hotel to tea.
Afterward, as I walked in the twilight upon the snowy path leading to the station of the funicular railway, I found myself surrounded by groups of young men and girls returning from skiing on the Grütsch Alp, and other places. But even these cheerful greetings and joyous conversations could not remove from my mind a new and entirely strange feeling of fascination that I felt was exercised over me by pretty Mrs. Audley. It was something magnetic, something indescribable, and, to me, wholly weird and uncanny. I had only spoken to her a few casual words. Yet I knew instinctively that into my careless and care-free life a new and disturbing element had entered.