The Crystal Claw by William Le Queux

Next day, Feng having left for Edinburgh to visit some friends, Thelma and I traveled to London together. At King's Cross I saw her into a taxi, for she was going to Highgate to spend a few days with a girl cousin, and myself went across to Russell Square.

Mrs. Chapman was greatly excited at my return, and was eager to know exactly what had happened, for already Hensman had been round and told her of my accident.

"Yesterday, about four o'clock, a gentleman called, sir," my old servant went on. "He was very anxious to see you, and seemed worried that you were away. I told him I expected you back today. Then, after hesitating a little, he asked leave to come in and write a note for you. He's left it on your table, sir."

"Who was he?"

"I've never seen him before, sir. He was a tall man with a long hooked nose, and a thin face deeply lined."

It sounded very like a description of my affable friend from Bradford!

"Did you notice his tie-pin? " I asked.

"Yes, sir. It was a funny one -- like a little eye."

I dashed into my room where upon my blotting-pad lay a letter. This I tore open and read. It was written in the same handwriting as that mysterious letter to the Coroner, and upon a sheet of my own note-paper.

"_Do you refuse to be warned? _" it read. "_Drop your search for Stanley Audley, or next time steps will be taken to prevent you from escaping. It is known that you love Thelma, and that is forbidden, for Stanley Audley still lives, and is watching you! _"

There was no signature. I took from my pocket the strange letter left in my bedroom and compared them. The writing was exactly similar.

"How long was the man here? " I asked of Mrs. Chapman, on entering the little kitchen of the flat.

"Oh! about ten minutes, sir. He seemed very busy writing, so I left him."

"Ten minutes! " I echoed. "Six lines of writing could not take that time!"

Clearly there must be another reason why my home should have been so boldly entered, so I dashed back to my room and on opening the drawers of my roll-top desk I found three of them in disorder, as though they had been hurriedly searched.

At once I realized what had gone. All the letters I had received from Thelma I had kept tied up with pink tape because of my legal training, I suppose. They had been lying in the bottom drawer on the right hand side. It was not my habit to lock up anything from my old and trusted servant, hence the desk had not been closed down. Had it been, the drawers would have locked themselves automatically.

The letters were no longer there! The mysterious visitor had evidently sought for and found them. Was the intention to place them in the hands of the missing man? Or was it blackmail?

Every incident in the queer tangle of events seemed to add a further puzzle to the mystery of Stanley Audley and his associates. An intention to levy blackmail might explain the theft of the letter, though they were innocent enough. But they did not explain the attack on myself and the constant espionage to which I was subjected. Why should I be marked down for assassination? That I had made a foolishly romantic promise to act as guardian and protector of a pretty bride, was not enough to answer that question.

Each day that passed since that fateful afternoon amid the silent Alpine snows had increased the mystery which surrounded Stanley Audley. Was he a crook, an associate of an unscrupulous international gang of forgers -- or was he after all, an honest man? If only Thelma would speak! But it was obvious her lips were sealed, and I felt convinced they were sealed by fear. Someone, it was obvious, had some hold over her which enabled him to command her silence. It was her duty as a wife, she claimed, to preserve her husband's secrets inviolable. But what was the secret?

I returned to the office next day depressed and puzzled to the last degree. I was hardly conscious of what I was doing. As in a waking dream I lived through the agony I had gone through at Stamford. Time and again I seemed to feel that cold thing on my lips; the small, evil-looking eye I had seen in my half-consciousness seemed to glare balefully at me even in the broad daylight. And time after time, as I sat in my office striving wearily to read letters and dictate coherent replies, Thelma's exquisite face appeared to float in the air before me. Distraught and overwrought I realized at last that work was hopeless and hurriedly left the office.