Tired from her ski excursion Mrs. Audley left us early and went to bed. The old doctor and I were sitting in the lounge drinking coffee when I made up my mind to ask him about the crystal claw.
“What does the crystal claw mean, Doctor?” I said quietly, shooting the question at him suddenly in an interval of our chat.
He glanced at me keenly. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What makes you think I know anything about it?”
“All right, Doctor,” I laughed. “I happened to be looking at you when Mrs. Audley came into the dining room and saw your face. Also I saw you looking at the claw afterward. Don’t tell me you don’t know anything about it. Remember I’m a lawyer.”
The old man laughed. “You’re right enough, my boy,” he said pleasantly. “I know a good deal about the crystal claw. But what I don’t know is why it was sent Mrs. Audley—or rather to Miss Shaylor.”
“Same thing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Not by any means,” he rejoined quickly. “That claw was sent to Miss Shaylor—to Miss Shaylor,” he repeated emphatically. “The fact that she is Mrs. Audley has nothing whatever to do with it. She thinks it is a wedding present. It is nothing of the kind. The man who sent her the crystal claw could not have known of her wedding, anyhow.”
“Tell me all about it, Doctor,” I begged.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I don’t suppose it will do any harm if I do. But you had better keep what I tell you to yourself, at any rate for the present.
“The crystal claw,” he went on, “is the badge or sign of the Thu-tseng, a powerful Manchu secret society. There is nothing illegal about the society; it simply works for the political regeneration of China. Hsi-yuan himself is one of its leading lights—you know of him, of course. The claw is given, so far as outsiders are concerned, only to those who have rendered some signal service to the society. Now, I cannot see how Mrs. Audley, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, can have helped the Thu-tseng. Excepting myself, she has probably never spoken to a Chinese in her life.”