The Crystal Claw by William Le Queux

"But what was the mystery of Audley's disappearance? " I asked Feng, in breathless eagerness, now that the enigma was in course of solution.

"Well, Humphreys at first did his level best to prevent the marriage, but finding that impossible he went very cleverly to work. Audley, who was a young man of means -- though he pretended that his profession was that of electrical engineer -- had, Humphreys discovered, fallen into the hands of a man named Graydon, a friend of his, who lived in the same house as Audley and who was one of a gang of note forgers.

"By clever means this gang had used Audley for their own purposes, even to the extent of sometimes inducing him to assume Graydon's identity. Harold Ruthen was one of Graydon's accomplices in passing spurious notes, hence old Humphreys knew of Audley's connection with the forgers. After Thelma's marriage which he had tried in vain to prevent, it was highly necessary for the furtherance of Humphreys' sinister plan, to get her husband away. He therefore caused to be sent to him at Mürren a veiled message that the police were making inquiries in London and that he had better at once efface himself, even from his wife. This he did, leaving Thelma in your care."

"But was Stanley really a forger? " I asked.

"At first I thought so, but later I found that the poor fellow had acted in all innocence. He was being blackmailed by the gang and thus forced to assist them, until he received that warning and fled," replied Feng. "I was all the time watching the very deep game played by the wily old crook who posed as an invalid. With Audley out of the way he expected that it would be easy to complete his plans. Instead, to his great chagrin, you came forward as the bride's companion and protector. It was then that he determined, if you still continued to watch over the girl, from whose husband he had contrived to part her, that your activities should be suppressed. It then became my active duty to keep guard over both of you, which I did to the best of my ability.

"It was, of course, a difficult task. Had he been in New York you would both have been watched night and day by men of the Thu-tseng. The Chinese make the finest ‘shadowers' in the world and in New York they are so very numerous that I could employ them with impunity. In London they are too conspicuous. It was really through this that Humphreys nearly beat me at the finish.

"But I will give you an instance of how narrowly you escaped. Do you remember one night when we all had supper with Humphreys at a Chinese restaurant near Piccadilly Circus?"

"Yes," I nodded.

"And you remember that I signalled to you not to eat the cold soup that was served?"

"Yes," I replied. "I thought you meant it was something I should not like."

"You would have been dead in five days if you had eaten it," said Feng grimly. "It was by a miracle of luck that I saw Humphreys drop into it a tiny pellet as he reached his hand out for some bread. The Chinese waiter took your soup away. Humphreys did not notice the Chinese remark I made to the waiter, but that soup was preserved and analyzed. It contained a virulent culture of the germs of typhoid fever. The Chinese waiter, of course, was an agent of the Thu-tseng. I daresay you will meet him some day. He happens to be a doctor and a great friend of mine. He analyzed the soup for me. If you had taken a spoonful of it while Humphreys was telling the funny stories at which you were laughing, you would have been dead in five days -- of perfectly natural causes."

"But, Thelma. Did you know anything of all this? " I asked turning to her, astounded and muddled.

"Some of the facts I knew, but not all," she replied. "I hope you will forgive me, but I acted all along upon Doctor Feng's instructions. At Mürren I knew nothing, and was entirely unsuspicious of the plot against us both."

"Humphreys had degenerated into perhaps the cleverest financial crook in Eastern Europe," said Feng. "The way in which he held Audley aloof from his wife while his friends Graydon and Ruthen were at the same time terrorizing him and compelling him to assist in passing their spurious notes, was a most remarkable feature of the case. He acted with such caution and pre-arranged things so cunningly, that I confess I was more than once misled and befogged.

"It was he who sent you those warnings from Hammersmith and North London in an endeavor to frighten you off. He certainly had a sort of superstitious fear of you. My chief fear for Thelma was that she might be secretly poisoned in a similar manner to the attempt upon yourself. Therefore I insisted that she should never take her meals in a restaurant alone."

"And I was in ignorance," I exclaimed.

"I deemed it best. I did not wish to alarm either of you, and indeed it is only since the narrow escape you both had at Heathermoor Gardens that I revealed to Thelma the motive of the plot. I did not suspect that terrible death-trap, but as soon as Thelma was missing I naturally felt that she must have fallen into the hands of one or other of the gang. Judge my surprise when I discovered that she surreptitiously, at Audley's request, rejoined him in hiding at a small private hotel in Gloucester Road, Kensington. Audley was in constant dread of the police, an apprehension kept alive by Ruthen and Graydon, and for that reason he destroyed his clothes and some false notes before escaping from the room at Lancaster Gate. He turned the key from the outside, in order further to mystify those whom he believed to be his pursuers."

"I was his pursuer," I remarked.

"True. But he was avoiding you, as well as the police," Feng said. "He was told that you were making inquiries concerning him on his wife's behalf and would, if you gained the truth, reveal it to her. Naturally, he had no desire that Thelma should know that the police were wanting him upon grave charges of forgery."