The Crystal Claw by William Le Queux

Though I was not, as a rule, fond of society, it was impossible to resist the infection of the merry-making spirit at Mürren and in consequence I joined heartily in all the fun that was going forward. The night of the bob-sleigh trip found me playing the drum in the amateur jazz band -- a dance-orchestra formed among the visitors each year, to carry on the dancing after midnight. Mrs. Audley and her husband came into the dance-hall of the Kürhaus just as the merriment began, and they danced together while I sat behind the drum with a little comic, flat-brimmed hat in imitation of George Robey, upon my head.

"Really your amateur band is more amusing than the professional one," declared Audley, during the interval. "Last night we watched you. It seems that the visitors wait until you start up."

"Well," I laughed. "We try and keep things humming along until two, or even three o'clock. We like to play and the others like to dance."

"My wife loves it," he declared. "She's only just been saying that she would like to join you."

"Right! " I said, laughing. "She shall be our pianist tomorrow -- if she will."

But the bride hesitated. "I'm afraid, Mr. Yelverton," she said, "that I'm not so good as the American girl you've got. She's a professional, surely."

As a matter of fact she was studying the piano in Paris, and was in Mürren for the winter holiday.

And then we struck up again and the crowd danced merrily till nearly three o'clock.

The following day was a Saturday. I spent a large part of the morning gossiping with old Mr. Humphreys, whose chief pleasures as an invalid seemed to be to play bridge and to smoke his pipe. Though his was rather a thoughtful disposition, as his deep-sunken eyes and shaggy brows suggested, yet he was always a cheerful and entertaining companion.

"I sometimes stay with my sister at Weybridge, in Surrey," he explained, as I walked beside him while he wheeled his chair over the snowy road which leads out of the village along the edge of the deep precipice overlooking Lauterbrunnen in the misty valley far below. While we were in the bright keen air high-up above the clouds, with the sun shining brilliantly over a white picturesque world, below, in the valley, it was dark dull winter. "Very soon," added my friend, "very soon I'll have to go back to Constantinople, where I have a good many interests. But I shall only be there a few weeks. All this political trouble makes things very difficult financially. Have you ever been in Turkey?"

I replied in the negative, but added that it had long been my desire to go there, and see the beauties of the Bosphorus.

"Yes," he said, "You ought to go. You'd find lots to interest you. Life in the Turkish capital and Turkish life is quite different from life in Europe. The Turk is always a polished gentleman and, moreover, the foreigner is now better protected in every way than the Turk himself, thanks to the laws made years ago."

"That, I suppose, is why Constantinople before the war was such a hot-bed of European sharks, swindlers and bogus concession-hunters," I remarked, with a smile, for I had heard much of the "four-flush" crowd from a friend who had interests in the Ottoman Empire.

"Exactly," he laughed. "It is true that in Pera we have a collection of the very worst crooks in all Europe. But it is hoped that, under the new conditions, Turkey will expel them and begin a new and cleaner regime."

As he spoke we turned a sharp corner, and Stanley Audley and his pretty wife, smart in another sports suit of emerald green that I had not before seen her wearing, shouted simultaneously the warning, "_Achtung! _"

Next second, recognizing us, they greeted us cheerily as they slid swiftly past upon their skis.

"A very charming pair -- eh? " remarked old Humphreys. "The more I see of them the more interesting they become. What do you think of the girl? You are young, and should be a critic of feminine beauty," he added, with a smile.

"I agree. She is very charming," I said, "Audley is, however, rather too serious, don't you think?"

"Yes, I do. She's too go-ahead for him -- she's a modern product as they call it. If a man marries he ought to have a comrade, not a cushion. A woman, to be a perfect wife, should not be too intellectual. A knowledge of literature, art and science does not necessarily make for domestic happiness. In a wife you want heart more than brains. Yet a giddy, brainless wife is even a worse abomination."

"Do you mean Mrs. Audley," I asked.