The crystal claw

“Yes, an extremely pretty girl,” remarked old Dr. Feng, bending towards me and speaking softly across the table-à-deux at 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 singularly expressive 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 have left 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 in the great salle 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 is par excellence a sports centre for young people who indulge in skating, tobogganing, lugeing and 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 one finds 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 which were 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 partnership with 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 and had 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.