Outside was the hurry and bustle of the busy avenue; inside was the
quietness and calm that characterised the house of Osmuhn & Son,
jewellers and dealers in articles of vertu. The Heppelwhite chairs were
carefully placed before each velvet square on the crystal cases that
extended the length of the shop on both sides. In rows of expert array
on the shelves and in the cabinets on the velvet-carpeted floor were
rich European and Oriental porcelains: Faïence and cloisonné; rare
pieces of Limoges, Satsuma, Arita, and Ninsei; lacquer ware of Kajikawa,
Ritsuo, and Korin. The salesmen, soft-footed, soft-voiced, appeared
merely indolent to the casual observer, but to one who could look
beneath the surface of things, they gave the impression of being alertly
on guard against a hidden something.
A limousine stopped before the door. The woman who alighted was
beautiful; the girl who followed her was wonderful--the type that makes
men putty and women envious. The uniformed attendant opened the door,
they stepped inside. If those two women had crossed the threshold of any
other shop on the avenue, there would have been a noticeable flurry of
excitement instantly. But not a clerk in the shop showed more than
courteous readiness. Osmuhn’s customers were all of the same type: the
richest, the most cultured, the most exclusive persons in New York. A
diamond ceased to be merely a diamond when it had been sold by Osmuhn.
It became a gem with the reputation of the seller behind it; a flawless,
matchless carbon. So it was with anything else one bought from Osmuhn &
Son.
But if the clerks showed no particular interest, the same could not be
said of the light-haired, blue-eyed young man who had been talking with
two others at the end of a long glass case. A smile of welcome came to
his lips as he hurried forward, hand outstretched.
“Mrs. Marle!” he exclaimed. “And Helen!”
His two hands met theirs in more than friendly clasp; the left to the
woman, the right to the girl. Only one man in the shop could not see the
light in the man’s eyes as he looked at the girl; but that one had
recognised love in the man’s voice.
“You knew I’d be here, didn’t you, Mr. Osmuhn?” laughed the woman
rippingly.
“The ruby.” It was not a question, just a smiling statement.
“Could mother ever resist a wonderful jewel?” put in the girl.
“It hasn’t been taken out of the private safe since you
saw it before, three months ago,” said the younger Osmuhn.
“Five-hundred-thousand-dollar rubies aren’t the playthings of the
average gem-buyer.”
“Respect my weakness, please,” pouted the woman in mock pleading; then
her eyes saw for the first time one of the men young Osmuhn had just
left, and they lighted with pleasure.
“I must speak to Mr. Colton,” she said, and she hurried to where he was
standing. The girl and the man followed slowly, talking in earnest
undertones.
Thornley Colton’s pale face lighted with pleasure as he took her hand,
and his thin, expressive lips smiled their glad welcome. Only the eyes
behind the great, round lenses of the smoked, tortoise-rimmed library
glasses did not change. His slim stick, apparently of ebony, hung
lightly from the tapering fingers of his left hand, as did the hat which
a moment before had covered the snow-white hair that curled from the
pink scalp.
“Now tell me where you’ve been keeping yourself!” the woman demanded
severely. “No evasion! We haven’t seen you since that wonderful thing
you did for the Jimmy Raeltons. It _was_ wonderful!” she added
earnestly.
“Thank you,” Colton said simply. There was no mock modesty; only quiet
sincerity in his rich deep voice.
“But you didn’t answer my questions,” she smiled. She turned to the
apple-cheeked, black-haired man who had stood silent. “Can you answer
them for him, Mr. Thames?”
The black-haired man started nervously as she spoke, for he had been
paying attention only to the beautiful girl with Osmuhn. Mrs. Marle
repeated the question before he had time to stammer the apology she saw
trembling on his lips.
“I am merely Mr. Colton’s secretary.” He said it a trifle stiffly, and
she understood that his hypersensitive nature resented her intuitive
understanding.
“I don’t like gaiety,” put in Colton quickly. “A quiet chat is my
greatest pleasure. Crowds confuse me, and make my eyes nervous.” He laid
his hand fondly on the other man’s shoulder, and to her eyes came
womanly sympathy. She knew what Thornley Colton meant. He was blind, and
the red-cheeked man beside him furnished the only eyes he knew.
“But you’ll come to my reception to-morrow night?” she asked earnestly.
“Only for a few minutes, but _do_ come.”
“I had intended to,” he smiled.
“That’s settled,” she nodded. “Now,” she added, with mock pleading in
her voice, “who is to be the happy recipient of your favour this time?”
One gloved hand made a small gesture toward the trays of jewels under
the glass. The blind man, whose years of practice had made him reader of
every inflection, understood instantly, but young Osmuhn came up in time
to answer.
“Mr. Colton has kindly consented to investigate a small matter for us,”
he said nervously.
“The necklace robbery you were telling me about?” asked the girl, eyes
shining.
“Here comes father.” Young Osmuhn’s face was red, his tone guilty.
Mrs. Marle repressed a smile with difficulty. She had never heard a
whisper of a necklace robbery in the house of Osmuhn & Son. She
understood how carefully the secret must have been guarded, and she
understood also the lack of caution that was part of youth and love. But
she was a wonderfully bright woman, and apparently she had not even
heard her daughter’s remark. All her attention was on the stout little
man with the shiny bald head and the bright eyes that gleamed from under
bushy brows.
“A great pleasure, Mrs. Marle,” said the elder Osmuhn, as he bowed
gravely. “You have come to see the Thousand Facets of Fire.”
“To buy it, I think,” she smiled, extending her hand.
“Ah,” murmured the gem-dealer, in a tone of quiet satisfaction. “I will
show it to you at once. It is in the vault.” Then a troubled light came
to his eyes, as they rested on Thornley Colton and Sydney Thames. Some
subtle fifth sense seemed to tell the blind man the cause instantly.
“Sydney and I will wait in your office, if you don’t mind,” he put in
quickly.
Osmuhn’s voice showed his relief. Experience had taught him that there
was much more appreciation when the customer was alone. “My son will
tell you everything,” he said. He looked around to where the other
member of the firm had been standing a moment before; then shrugged his
shoulders in parental helplessness. Osmuhn, junior, was leading Miss
Helen Marle toward the rear of the shop.
Mrs. Marle laughed. “You would have done the same thing at his age,” she
accused.
The jeweller shook his head. “I suppose so.” Then, to the blind man: “A
minute only, Mr. Colton,” he apologised.
“Make it ten,” smiled Colton. “Your son told me practically everything,
and I’d like to have ten minutes or so to think over the facts.”
Osmuhn turned toward the small, glass-enclosed office at the rear of the
shop, from which he could see everything that went on. The blind man
followed unhesitatingly, superkeen ears noting each footfall of the man
who preceded him.
“Only a minute,” repeated the seller of jewels again, when the two men
had been made comfortable in the two big chairs by the desk. “Come, Mrs.
Marle.” He seemed to take an unnecessary step or two as he said it, and
only the blind man heard the click of some secret electric connection
releasing the steel door that Osmuhn opened a minute later by a curious
pressure of his fingers on the knob, and a peculiar-looking key.
Mrs. Cornelius Marle, probably the richest woman in New York, lover of
jewels because they were jewels, and not merely as ornaments, owner of
what was reputed to be the finest collection of rare gems, entered the
innermost citadel of the house of Osmuhn. The steel door shut softly
behind her, and she knew that she was as far removed from the world
outside as though she were a thousand feet underground. She knew that
the tapestry-covered walls of the twelve-foot room were of eighteen-inch
concrete, interlaced with steel rails; that the Winton-carpeted floor
and the panelled ceiling were the same. The steel door behind her was
the only opening in the walls of man-made stone.
She needed no direction to take a seat at the small Sheraton table
against the wall at the far side of the vault. She had been there
before; each time when Osmuhn had picked up some rare and costly jewel.
The jeweller, with a soft-voiced apology, leaned over her shoulder to
press the pearl-centred black button in the brass wall-plate a foot from
the woman’s elbow. The table light shed its brilliance on the white
velvet table-pad.
“The Thousand Facets of Fire is the most wonderful ruby I have ever seen
or handled,” declared Osmuhn enthusiastically, as he stepped behind her
to twirl the two combination knobs on the door of the steel safe that
was imbedded in the concrete wall. “Mr. Norvel heard of it when he was
in Europe last year. He negotiated for months, and sent it to me just
ten days before his horrible accident in France.”
“The accident left him a hopeless cripple, did it not?” she asked
politely, turning in her chair so that she could see the deft fingers at
work with the combination.
“Yes.” Osmuhn’s voice was sad. “He must walk with canes always.” Then a
note of pride came to his voice. “But he refuses to give up. He is here
every day, and I need him. In the twenty-eight years he has been with me
he has learned everything I know about stones, and to-day he is probably
the greatest living expert on diamonds.”
The round safe-door swung open, and, with a wholly unconscious flourish,
he placed the big jewel-case before her and snapped back the lid.
A thousand blood-red flashes of living fire seemed to leap upward,
battling with their myriad sword points against the soft glow of the
electric--then the whole room seemed lighted only by the wonderful ruby
in its velvet case.
As great music hypnotises, intoxicates to sense-numbing silence, so the
refraction of the ruby’s million rays held the woman spellbound. She
could not speak, nor move; her eyes were held by the lights that danced
and flashed from the thousand facets--now invitingly, now mockingly, but
always sure of their victory.
Osmuhn’s eyes, under their bushy brows, gleamed brighter--they
understood. At his first sight of the jewel he, too, had known why men
had risked their lives and why women had bartered their souls and bodies
for the Thousand Facets of Fire.
“Is it not well named?” he asked.
His words seemed to break the spell that bound her. She nodded as one in
a dream, and put forth her fingers almost timidly to touch the flashing
stone.
“Take it in your hand, feel the weight of it.” He turned away, walked
the length of the room. When he came back she was holding the ruby on
her palm. The velvet box had been thrust aside, and in her eyes was
almost childish wonder that a thing so full of fire could be so cold.
With a quiet nod of satisfaction Osmuhn turned away again--it was no
time for words. Mrs. Marle would want to speak in a moment; until
then----. He went behind her, and bent down to the safe, his hands idly
rearranging the small boxes that held the most valuable jewels in his
possession; jewels that were never allowed to go from the
specially-constructed safe in the specially-constructed room, unless his
hands removed them.
The woman still gazed at the jewel. A wavering streamer of mist seemed
to hover over it for an instant--or was it a picture the jewel had
conjured in her brain? As she watched, immovable, it spread over her
hand, then over the whole table--an impenetrable veil of filmy nothing.
She lifted her unoccupied hand to brush her eyes.
A gasping noise came from her throat. The man behind her seemed to sense
something wrong in the very sound. He wheeled, the hand that had been on
the safe-door clanged it shut.
“It’s gone!” she choked. “_Gone!_”
The mist had vanished as it had come. The hand that never moved; the
hand that had held the ruby was empty!